The Manhattan Times

Building residents concerned over spate of muggings

by Adam Garrett-Clark

On her way home exactly one week after Inwood resident Evelyn Espinal was mugged, she spotted two men who matched the description of her attackers.

They had the same red baseball caps, white t-shirts, pony tails and skin tones as the men who attacked her on July 17. The men, whose faces she didn’t see, had come up from behind her on W. 214^th Street, choked her, covered her eyes and dragged her until the straps of her handbag ripped free. The woman who came to her aid on the dim, silent street just before midnight said she had also been mugged recently.

The two women aren’t alone. On May 19 a man walking his dog at around 10:30 p.m. was clubbed in the head and mugged by three Hispanic men. They grabbed his iPhone and ran into Isham Park. On May 24, another man was stopped by a group of teens in Inwood Hill Park near Dyckman Street and asked the time. The man was then zapped in the back of the neck with a taser. Stunned, the man fought back, escaping the would-be muggers.

With a general sense that crime is on the rise in the Park Terrace community beside Inwood Hill Park, Espinal and her neighbors called a security meeting in the lobby of their building at 600 W. 218th St. on July 29. The group invited Tony Trinidad, Community Affairs Officer of the 34th Police Precinct, to address its concerns.

With about 25 neighbors in attendance, the meeting quickly became tense as residents expressed to the police officer their frustration in feeling vulnerable on their own streets and unprotected by the police.

“I think we’re just feeling pretty unsafe,” resident Nicole Zernone said as she swayed back and forth with her baby strapped to her chest. After hearing about several incidents recently, and given the fact that it’s happening in the northernmost pocket of Manhattan, it feels like the precinct is neglecting the area, she said.

After asking several questions, residents were disappointed to learn that there is only one patrol car that covers the area from Dyckman Street to W. 218th Street, and pressed Trinidad for the number of daily patrols around the Park Terrace community.

Trinidad said it was difficult to accurately quantify the amount of police presence because patrols float through their zone and don’t necessarily keep track of how many times they pass a given area.

“I don’t know how to show you our patrols,” Trinidad said.

“I think it’s a fair question,” said Katherine Miller, a resident. At her feet lay a paper bag full of boxed electronics. Before the meeting Miller took a livery cab the few blocks between her home and the subway, she said, feeling unsafe with her newly purchased items in tow.

Trinidad said that the message he would take back to his command was that the residents wanted more police presence. “That’s what I’m going to walk away with tonight,” he said, “that you want to see the men in blue.”

Trinidad offered to have scheduled patrols during high-risk times based on suggestions from residents, such as when a lot of dog walkers are out or when commuters are returning home.

But Trinidad urged residents to be vigilant and aware of their surroundings, especially in the early morning and late at night. The best environment for a criminal is when the streets are quiet, dark and void of witnesses, he said. Unfortunately those conditions are in abundance in the northern tip of Inwood, with its sleepy tree-covered byways.

“You’re a victim of, I guess, your own success,” Trinidad said.

Residents continued to trade advice after the policeman left.

Keep your keys separate from your purse, one mugging victim advised, that way you can still get into your apartment if your purse is taken.

Martin Collins, community affairs liaison for Assembly Member Adriano Espaillat, advised meeting attendees to put away their personal electronic gadgets when walking through unpopulated streets. Take off the earphones, he said, because they reduce your awareness and can act like an invitation to a mugger.

Meeting organizers said that the last time they called a similar gathering there were only three attendees. With a full house this time, the group moved on to other pressing concerns: getting the busted street light fixed so the walk home wasn’t so dark and discussing how to convince the landlord to change the front locks now that the muggers have Espinal’s keys and address.

Residents reminded each other to keep the building’s front and back doors closed at all times and to remember to scrutinize strangers before letting them in or buzzing them up.

Espinal added one more suggestion to her fellow neighbors, some of whom she was meeting for the first time. “Let’s look each other in the eye when we pass through the lobby,” she pleaded, “and say hi to each other.”

The Manhattan Times is the bilingual newspaper of Washington Heights and Inwood.