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Mid Hudson Times, Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Senior complex residents fear for their safety
By KATELYN CORDERO
[email protected]
Senior Citizens living at the Senior complex on Lake
Street came to city council on October 9 to air concerns
about security and deplorable conditions.
“I was almost raped in the elevator to my building,”
said Sonya Miranda. “I am now afraid of the elevator. I
have to have someone to take me upstairs and downstairs.”
Miranda is one of the women who was sexually
assaulted in her building. When she raised concerns to
management, the City of Newburgh Police Department
was not notified of the attack.
“We have predators going around on the premises
in the laundry room sexually assaulting women,” said
Deborah Darcy one of the women to speak up. “These
seniors pay their rent and their homes are infested with
bed bugs. They have to put all of their belongings in the
bath tubs until the situation is taken care of.”
The women are looking to start a tenants union to
fight back against the owners of their property, because
they have not received any response. Michelle Kelson
Deborah Darcy addressed the City Council last week.
City Corporate Counsel pledged to send more codes
officers to the buildings.
The City Council was appalled by the treatment of the
senior citizens within the community.
“There are six senior buildings in the city of Newburgh
and none of them have security,” said Councilwoman
Hilary Rayford. “I would like to see our Police Department
step up surveillance but I also would like to see Auxiliary
Police Department used in these areas. I don’t like to hear
a church member was almost raped. That’s a mother, a
grandmother. I want police presence.”
City police report that crime is decreasing
By KATELYN CORDERO
[email protected]
The crime rate in the City of Newburgh
has decreased with the number of
shootings down 33 percent in the past
year. Chief Doug Solomon of the City of
Newburgh Police Department attributes
the decrease to various programs and
tactics used in the department coming
together.
“Everything has gelled together this
year,” said Solomon. “And it continues to
come together.”
One of the focuses has been using tactics
that are beneficial to the community.
The Group Violence Intervention (GVI)
program is one that has been a focus of
the department.
“We saw that zero tolerance policing
is not working in our community,” said
Solomon. “There was a time and place
for that but that time has come and
gone. We now are looking at a targeted
enforcement. There has been a change in
philosophy. Now our focus is on looking
at a community that has over policed for
minor charges and overlooked on major
charges.”
According to the chief five percent of
the community commits 85 percent of
crimes. They have set their efforts on the
five percent committing a majority of
crimes.
The department is also focusing on
changing the individuals they are
targeting. They have identified local
partners and through sweeps they have
been successful with eliminating violent
groups.
The department has also launched
the non-fatal shooting task force, which
includes a City of Newburgh Detective,
crime analysis and a District Attorney
investigator. They have started to see a
decline in non-fatal shootings in 2017 and
towards the end of 2018. The department
expects the declines to continue into 2018.
Another program the police department
has taken advantage of has been the Shot
Spotter program. Sensors throughout
the city take out the guesswork usually
needed to track down the location of a
gunshot. This allows officers to locate a
gunshot within 30 to 90 seconds.
“The big thing with the shot spotter
is the unseen benefits,” said Solomon.
“People know the police are coming if
they shoot.”
The $195,000 program is expected to get
funding this year, but it is unclear where
the funds will come from for the program.
The police department has had the
lowest number of shootings in the past
two years. In 2017 there were a total of 17
shootings with an average of 1.5 shootings
each month. In November of 2015 there
were 12 shootings in one month alone.
The decline in crime has also led to a
32 percent decline in overtime being that
men are not being brought in to cover
crime scenes or perform crowd control
as often.
“I think we have turned a corner for a
lot of different reasons,” said Solomon.
“For Code enforcement the dynamic in
Newburgh has changed for the better, I
don’t see us going back to what Newburgh
was in the past.”
NLEY th
A
M
VOTE AY, NOV. 6
UESD
T
ELECT
Scott M.
MANLEY
for STATE ASSEMBLY
104 TH DISTRICT