Olga Tello worked hard to rid her neighborhood of pesky problems but she says the 34th Precinct did little to help. (Photo by Tim Kiladze)

Bridget Best loves her Inwood apartment on the second floor of 1 Arden Street that overlooks the building’s front entrance. Not only is it a beautiful space with “absurdly cheap” rent, it is close to the No. 1 subway line she rides to the Manhattan School of Music.

Best looked at the apartment last fall when the roads were empty and the neighborhood noise was minimal. She saw nothing suspicious. But as the temperature rose this past spring, she fell victim to the cacophony created by teenagers who took to the streets. Over one two-week period, Best says the noise was nonstop between 4 p.m. and 3 a.m, something she couldn’t handle despite growing up in urban Toronto and living in New York for three years.

The situation quickly escalated. A few fights broke out in front of her building, then a 50-person brawl another night – the two sides distinguished by their white and black beaters. On a different evening, people threw bricks from her building, smashing a car window. Best called for police in both cases, but no one responded.

Many residents of the 34th Precinct, which covers Inwood and Washington Heights, complain of the same thing. At community meetings this fall, they voiced their frustration with inadequate responses from the people who are supposed to serve and protect their communities. Although murders have declined, three last year versus 103 in 1990, quality of life issues bother these residents – problems they say the police don’t care about because a body isn’t on the ground.

Best thinks social demographics plays a role. “You see these kids,” she says, “They have no future and nothing to do. And nobody cares about them because they’re poor and Dominican. If these were white kids from a good neighborhood, you’d have police there every night.” Taking matters into her own hands, she befriended the people she says deal weed and crack on her street so they would know her when she walks home from the subway at 2 a.m.

After a few months, however, they stopped talking to her. Best soon discovered someone started a rumor that her boyfriend, a 6-foot-6 opera singer, was a cop. She isn’t worried. “Truthfully, I’ve never feared for my own safety,” she says. “They don’t want to hurt me; they want to kill each other.” She simply wishes she did not have to put up with the resulting noise and the drugs.

Olga Tello has similar problems. She lives in 640 Fort Washington Avenue and constantly complains about noise and nuisances like drunks sleeping in her building’s lobby, something new tenants have to adjust to when they first move in. “We pay too much rent” for that, she says with a thick *Argentinian accent.

Her battle, which she has been fighting since 1997 when she first moved in with her husband, Tom, is akin to a war of attrition. Before moving uptown, she was a live-in housekeeper for a family on 72nd Street. She was excited to have her own place and her new building looked nice from the outside, but she soon found out it was full of parties and drugs, and the elevator was in bad shape. She and Tom often complained to the superintendent and eventually held tenant meetings. Tello also asked the landlord if she could make a small garden; he obliged and contributed some money. He also fixed the elevator.

But some tenants didn’t appreciate the changes. They heckled Tello and played games with her. One night when Tom was away driving a bus to North Carolina, she came home to glue stuck inside her keyhole, preventing her from getting inside. In another incident, someone dumped bleach in her garden.

She turned to the police but she says they offered little assistance. Despite her constant calls to the precinct, officers rarely showed up. “Tommy went so many times to talk with Inspector Monaghan,” the previous commanding officer, she says. “They were not helping us.”

Tello turned into a community activist, morphing her building meetings into community gatherings in 1998. Her efforts proved successful. “We cleaned the buildings, but it was not easy,” she says.

These community meetings have become popular uptown, drawing the interest of public officials. Once a year, Tello manages to bring together officers from the 34th Precinct, Councilman Robert Jackson, representatives from transit and sanitation, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

She also attends the 34th Precinct’s monthly community meetings, which she says are especially ineffective because the police listen to public complaints but rarely follow up on them. She thinks the meetings are all for show. “I see people complaining over and over about the issues, and they don’t fix them,” she says.

She urges neighborhood residents to make Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly aware of their concerns. “Write to the mayor, write to Kelly,” she says. “Let the officials know that we’re not going to put up with this nonsense no more.”

Her frustration has reached a tipping point. “There are wonderful police officers who do their job and are nice,” she says, “but I cannot say that about the 34th Precinct… They never helped me with the problems I had here.” On the rare occasion they responded to one of her calls, she says “the police would come, and they would always have an attitude. And they would never do anything.”

Deputy Inspector Andrew Capul, the 34th Precinct’s commanding officer, sat on the panel at Tello’s Oct. 26 community meeting. Most residents voiced problems outside his jurisdiction (overflowing garbage cans, for example), but he briefly addressed quality of life issues, acknowledging noise complaints and such problems as a flurry of vehicle break-ins on Cabrini Boulevard (15 autos were stolen in a 28 day period this fall).

Capul tried to assuage the crowd by citing his officers’ efforts. For the vehicles, the precinct now parks a car with an embedded camera on the street. He also said the police try to respond to all noise complaints but have trouble doing anything because the volume often dies down before they arrive.

He used the same defenses at the 34th Precinct’s monthly meeting just before Thanksgiving. Unlike Tello’s community gathering, this night focused on police issues and a slew of officers attended, including Executive Officer Jose Navarro and traffic Officer Steven McManus.

On this occasion, Capul addressed quality of life issues first, noting a rise in complaints and growing community outrage. Upfront, he said: “If I had to give us a grade, I wouldn’t give us an outstanding. We can do better.”

Elizabeth Porter certainly believes that. She lives with her daughter on West 181st Street across from Cabrini Boulevard in an apartment she calls the “investment of my life,” but is constantly bothered by noise late into the night. Her living room, complete with VHS movies like “My Cousin Vinny,” overlooks 181st, a popular thoroughfare.

Mexican restaurant Agave Azul and cigar shop Fumee, both owned by the same man, are directly across the street from Porter’s living room window. Fumee offers valet service on several nights, which blocks parking spaces available to area residents, forcing people – often the shop’s patrons – to double-park.

This wouldn’t be a problem on a side street, but 181st connects to the West Side Highway. When cars are blocked, drivers honk incessantly and yell for people to come out and move their vehicles. When someone appears, a war of words ensues. It gets so loud that “it sounds like people are standing in your living room,” Porter says.

Fumee’s patrons also drink on the street and leave the shop drunk late at night, she charges, even though Fumee doesn’t have a liquor license. Porter has logged many complaints about the noise and the illegal drinking, of which she has photos.

Just as with Best and Tello, Porter complains that the police rarely respond to her calls. She is convinced they don’t respond because they themselves are Fumee’s patrons and sometimes double-park their squad cars – something she also has photographed.

Porter is fed up. Inspector Capul speaks to her personally at meetings but does little to follow up. “For many years he was treating me as a crazy old lady,” she says, adding that he listens to her and then throws out statistics proving the police are doing a good job. “He has a pitch,” Porter says. “He uses the same words to pat himself on the back.”

She’s also fed up with 311. When she calls, she gets a reference number to track the complaint’s status online and will check hours later only to find the complaint is closed, yet the cars remain double-parked or Fumee’s patrons continue to make noise. In some instances, she waits for the police to arrive and finds the complaint closed even though no one responded.

When officers do show up, they do very little. In one complaint she filed on July 21, 2008, at 8:37 p.m. because Fumee’s patrons were drinking outside and making noise, an officer wrote: “IT’S A FRIGGIN’ RESTAURANT BAR WITH A SIDEWALK EXTESION.”

The 311 complaint line also baffles Best. “I would always call 311 and they would rarely come,” she says. “And when they come, they shut the guys up for two minutes and then they get loud again.”

Porter feels like she has nowhere to turn. Calling the precinct is futile. “There is nobody that you can get connected with at the precinct that is going to give you a straight answer.” In the rare occasion someone says they will put an officer on her problem, she has no way to track the complaint like she does on 311.

Porter used to vent at Community Board 12 meetings, which includes the 34th Precinct, but she worries she can’t trust them considering Chair Manny Velazquez recently resigned because of shady liquor license negotiations. Community and precinct meetings are the only other outlets, but they sap her morale. “You go, you let your heart out, you get your heart going, and nothing comes of it,” she says.

Inspector Capul promises to take action on unanswered 311 complaints; he publicly vowed to sit down with two key officers before year-end to discuss how they can do a better job, focusing on chronic problems like noise complaints, which make up about 75 percent of 311 calls.

Capul says improving 311 response times and making sure the police show up are his priorities, but cautions that each precinct has around 50 fewer officers than five years ago. Cars dispatched to 311 calls sometimes get diverted to more pressing issues.

Capul also says the police are doing well in some areas. In 25 burglaries this year, the police traced fingerprints or DNA at the scene and tracked down the invaders; in a recent shooting on Sherman Avenue, the suspect was caught within a block and a half.

Tello doesn’t deny that some officers and precincts do a good job, but she wants accountability on the issues that constantly affect her. She’s also sick of hearing crime statistics cited at public gatherings because she has nothing to compare them to, something she fears makes the police look unjustly good.

Best would also like to see accountability. The 34th precinct meeting was her first, but she attended because she’s had enough.

“I used to think people who complained at community meetings were losers,” she says. “Now I’m one of them.”

*The story originally misstated Tello’s former nationality: she comes from Argentina, not Venezuela.

A public hearing in Harlem Thursday will revisit the controversial May 28 police-on-police shooting in East Harlem, once more spotlighting issues of racial tension in law enforcement.

In a similar hearing in Albany Nov. 16, law enforcement officials, researchers, and community members emphasized the role of racial stereotypes in police-on-police shootings and offered recommendations to prevent future incidents. The hearing, held by a task force organized by Governor David A. Paterson, was the first of three in the state. On Thursday afternoon, the second hearing will take place near the crime scene, where a white police officer mistakenly killed a black plainclothes officer.

Officer Omar J. Edwards was fatally shot by another officer earlier this year. (AP Photo/New York Police Department)

The Albany task force included nine community members, law enforcement officials and experts on law and justice. “We are here to discuss the issues and implications arising from police on police shootings, especially those between those of different races, nationalities, and ethnicities,” said Christopher Stone, the task force chair and a professor of criminal justice at Harvard University.

Lewis Rice, a former Drug Enforcement Association agent, emphasized the role of race in the shooting. “No longer can it be acceptable to consider men and women of color…criminals before being proved otherwise,” he said.

On the night of the shooting, Andrew P. Dunton shot and killed another off-duty officer in plainclothes. Omar J. Edwards, 35, had just finished patrolling East Harlem’s housing projects and then chased a man who had supposedly broken into his car. With his gun drawn, he ran along 125th Street between First and Second avenues when three other officers saw him.

Dunton fired six rounds, and three bullets struck Edwards, one wounding him fatally. The shooting prompted angry protests, with marchers shouting “Justice for Omar,” according to The New York Times.

The upcoming trial will determine whether Dunton ordered Edwards to put down his weapon before he opened fire. Investigators said they think Dunton had called “Stop, police!” just before Edwards turned and Dunton fired the fatal bullet, according to The Times. The sequence of this scene will determine the verdict. Meanwhile, Dunton has been on administrative duty since the shooting. A grand jury in Manhattan decided not to indict Dunton, but a Police Department investigation is still underway.

The Harlem hearing can be expected to address many of the same issues that arose in Albany. Task force members there suggested cultural diversity training to prevent racial profiling, but some questioned whether the city would have the funds to support new programs.

“We must be creative in the recommendations we make so they are relevant in the reality of the current budget crisis,” said task force member Michael J. Farrell, a deputy commissioner with the New York Police Department.

The public hearing will begin at 3:30 p.m. Dec. 3 at the State Office Building on 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard.

Michael Anderson, 57, vanished on November 12, neighbors said. Anderson, a tall black male, lived alone and kept to himself, said one neighbor who asked for anonymity.

Michael Anderson, 57, disappeared on November 12 and police have padlocked his apartment as they search for him. (Photo courtesy of DCPI)

Police at the 34 Precinct said they issued a missing person’s report for Anderson after his doctors called his apartment looking for him. Anderson also emailed a suicide letter to a friend, the neighbor said.

Officers searched the apartment complex at 330 Haven Avenue for Anderson, last seen on November 12 around 1 a.m., police said. They broke down his door and scoured the grounds, said neighbors, who watched.

“They woke me up at 3 a.m. last week and they asked me what I know about him,” Anderson’s neighbor said. “Now they’ve padlocked the door.”
At the precinct, Detective Marc Nell said police saw no signs of struggle in Anderson’s apartment, but continue to look for clues.

His neighbor, a 20-year resident of the complex, said he has known Anderson since he moved in nearly 15 years ago and described him as quiet, reserved and an lover of theater and art. “I would always see him with playbills and programs in his hand,” he said.

Although Anderson was introverted and kept to himself, he always greeted his neighbors, they said.
Now his disappearance distresses them as they pass his padlocked apartment and see his face on missing posters, his longtime neighbor said.

Harlem dirt bike riders "Free" and Elliot Brown cruise Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. (Photo by Sam Petulla)

Stand on a block in Harlem and wait for a loud buzz—building to a roar, interrupted by pops. Eventually one will rip past, its rider howling—a dirt bike speeding and diving through city traffic. The bike wheelies further down the street and slides out the tail. The rider’s wearing athletic shoulder pads, a mesh chest guard, and underneath his helmet, flying behind like a flag of independence, a black do-rag.

Harlem has become home to a booming dirt bike scene—from renegades on illegal bikes to stunt jockeys who practice in abandoned lots. The bikes come in more colors than an iPod: classic red, hunter green, combinations like blue and yellow, checkered variations, and straight jet-black. Some bikes aren’t registered, and the police try to impound them and ticket the drivers. Residents either applaud their efforts or say despite city ordinances and police enforcement, they’re here to stay.

McKilo Williams, 33, known better by his alias “Ki-Lo The Dread,” helped start the dirt bike trend in Harlem a decade ago, when he starred as lead rider in hip-hop artist DMX’s video for the classic rap song “The Ruff Ryders Anthem.” As DMX raps, hundreds of dirt bikers, ATV and motorcycle riders swarm him—some in block-long wheelies, others burning-out their back tires into smoke clouds. Together, they became a bike team—the “Ruff Ryders.”  Their influence in the hip-hop scene remains strong; dirt bikers still idolize them for their speed and their beat-up, ride-anywhere style.

Williams stands over 6 feet tall, has a lean but muscular frame and wears long shaggy dreadlocks. He turned dirt biking through Harlem’s streets into a profession. “I met another guy, Wink1100, while I was riding down the street practicing tricks. He eventually asked me to be in the hip-hop videos,” he said, hanging out on 134th Street with his family, who looked on pridefully. “But I take care of my family with this,” he added. “I went to Miami, South Carolina—all on tour with the Ruff Ryders.”

Russell Houston, 28, standing on the corner of 135th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, said he sees urban dirt biking only gaining popularity. “My friends, basically everybody, is getting a bike. I decided I should try and get one myself and start a bike club.”

So Houston has been saving. “I gotta do my research,” he said. “If you want a used bike it will probably be like eight hundred dollars. A new bike is closer to fifteen hundred, two thousand.”

Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 135th Street is a hub for riders and their fans. “When you see a crowd, they’ll be out,” said Darnell Jackson, sitting on a ledge on the 135th Street block corner, beside the public housing apartments towering behind him. From here, bikes cruise up and down Frederick Douglass, or move cross-town, over to First Avenue and back.

And the bikes are quick.

“They can get up to 75, 80, 90,” said Blue Rico, a casual rider in baggy jeans reluctant to supply his name for fear of the police. “We’ll ride Frederick Douglass, Lenox—all over.”

They travel in teams—entire packs flying down Frederick Douglass Boulevard, bike after bike up pointed skyward in a wheelie. “40 of us—maybe. 50 on a good day—all riding,” said Elliot Brown, who rides a brown KLR 650. Some bikes have busted license plates dangling from the rear; others riders go without registration or helmets at all. Often, nubby tires are worn almost past the rubber from spending too many miles on asphalt street instead of on the soft dirt tracks they’re designed for. Stickers plaster the bikes like murals devoted to everything popular in dirt biking, fashion, music, and any other decals that can stylize them.

Dirt biker "Free" rides a wheelie down Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. (Photo by Sam Petulla)

A dirt biker’s arch nemesis is a police cruiser.

Police in the 32nd Precinct, however, say that they can try to pull over dirt bikers, but they cannot chase. “We can’t catch them because they’ll take the sidewalk,” said Officer Keith Lee, visibly angered, “We can’t pursue.” Another officer, standing beside him but declining to be named, added, “They all disappear. If we continue to chase it’s even more of a hazard to pedestrians.”

At the 32nd Precinct, disagreement reigned over such basic facts as dirt bike-pedestrian collisions. Some officers said they had heard about several pedestrian injuries in the last few months—none as a result of police pursuit—while other officers hadn’t heard of any. Currently, the department has no strategies for curbing the rise in illegal dirt biking or for catching fleeing riders, said officers at the 32nd Precinct. A Police Department Press Spokesman would not respond to phone calls and emails.

When issuing out tickets, police look for bikers not meeting the legal requirements for owning any motorcycle: periodic exhaust inspections from the Department of Motor Vehicles, and registration for the bike, considered a motorcycle. The rider must also have a motorcycle license, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Yet Williams says the police’s unfriendliness towards dirt bikers is unfounded. “They stop us and they give us lots of tickets and they try to take your bike,” he said.   “I even have cop friends that ride them, and they’ll still try to stop us, looking for anything that can give us a ticket.”

At Cycle Therapy—Harlem’s largest motorcycle shop—salesman Tomar Sho said sales of dirt bikes have skyrocketed—“easily doubling”—in recent years, and that he sees as many legal as illegal bikes on the street. But, he added, once a bike is sold, he can’t control how a customer will use it—that’s on the police.

Eyal Deep, another Cycle Therapy salesman, noted that mini-dirt bikes—for riders up to four feet tall—have become a particularly hot seller, with kids from the same apartment building sometimes pooling money to buy one.

But Sho added that while dirt bike sales have risen, they still only account for 1 percent of motorcycle sales and cause their share of headaches. Riders rarely bring bikes in for maintenance, preferring a beat-up style—a major revenue loss.

A few months ago, Deep said he heard some dirt bikes down the street and assumed they were coming to buy parts. Instead, the pack of riders, mostly in their early 20s, hopped the steps leading to the shop, roared through the door and started hiding their bikes from pursuing police officers among the showroom bikes and gear.

Residents have mixed opinions. Bea Harris, who has lived in Harlem since 1954, wants to see the dirt bike trend end. “They’re loud and they’re in the wrong place,” she said, walking along Frederick Douglass Boulevard shortly after some bikes passed, “The riders don’t use them the way they should. They’re not careful. They’re just reckless.”

But Malik Cupid, another lifelong resident, considered the police and biker urban cat-and-mouse games a permanent Harlem culture fixture. “They’re kind of fun to watch,” he said, looking around the neighborhood. “It’s not going anywhere. So just give it up,” he laughed.

A promotional video for the Harlem Legendz motorcycle club, features narration from a rider named “Buster,” who explains that illegal bikes are a popular emblem of street life. “All the rappers, all the movie stars—they emulate the streets. They emulate us. They emulate Harlem.”

Posters, like this one outside City College, offered a reward for information about the serial rapist. (Photo by Sonal Shah)

By Rachael Horowitz and Sonal Shah

After an intense two-month search, police have arrested the man they believe responsible for raping and robbing four women in Hamilton Heights during August and September.

DNA from the suspect, 21-year-old Vincent Heyward, matches DNA samples from all the rapes, and a 5th attempted attack, according to officers from the 33rd Precinct.

At his September 21 arraignment, Heyward tried to escape the courtroom but was easily restrained. He will next appear in New York Supreme Court on October 22. “It’s too bad he got lawyered up,” said NYPD Deputy Inspector Scott Shanley. “I want to know what drives this guy.” Heyward had been in a Virginia jail for car theft and had been released in June.

Police involved the community in the investigation, widely publicizing a sketch of the suspect based on surveillance footage and victims’ descriptions. They also circulated still photos from the surveillance.

At a community meeting, Sgt. Richard Crespo from Manhattan Special Victims assured residents that the police were following all leads from the four attacks and encouraged local residents to provide information. He even urged people to “ask your kids to snoop around.”

“If this guy’s in jail, it’s because of the community and the police,” said Officer Alan Asusta of the NYPD Crime Prevention Section at a City College meeting after Heyward was arrested on September 21.

The rapist first attacked on August 1, assaulting a 59-year-old woman at knifepoint in the courtyard of 565 W. 148th Street at 2:45 a.m.. After the second attack on August 10 – on a 23-year-old woman at 144th and Convent Avenue – police began looking for a single perpetrator.

The rapist struck again at 4 a.m. on August 18 when he followed a 69-year-old woman into the lobby of an apartment building at 765 Riverside Drive as she returned from work. She was raped and robbed inside the building elevator.

In the last attack on September 7, a 28-year-old woman was raped in her apartment on St. Nicholas Avenue. The attacker jumped to her apartment’s fire escape from the roof of a neighboring building and entered through a bathroom window.

Details of the attacks led some residents to speculate early on that the rapist might be local. “I get the feeling he might be from the neighborhood,” Raquel Monserrate, who lives at 788 Riverside Drive, said in August. Police said that Heyward lived on Edgecombe Avenue, close to where the four attacks occurred, and they later confirmed that he probably picked out victims and followed them from the subway. Monserrate was avoiding going outside to walk her dog during those quiet hours. “Since that happened, we bought wee-wee pads,” she said.

Deputy Inspector Shanley hopes that the community involvement will remain even though this particular crisis has ended. “People have to realize he’s not the only rapist in the world,” he said.