By Kathianne Boniello
What’s up in northeast Queens’s 111th Precinct?
For the first time in a long time, the answer this week was crime.
New York Police Department statistics made available Monday reveal a nearly 11 percent increase in crime for the first six months of 2002 in the Bayside-based precinct from year-earlier levels. It is the first increase in overall crime in the 111th in at least three years.
Those figures include a dramatic increase in burglaries, which almost doubled when compared to similar statistics for 2001, and a rise in grand larcenies in the first half of the year when compared to the first six months of 2001.
Another relatively unusual occurrence in the 111th Precinct, which includes the communities of Bayside, Douglaston, Little Neck, Hollis Hills, Auburndale and parts of Flushing, concerned car thefts, which have dropped nearly 10 percent so far in 2002.
111th Precinct Community Affairs Officer Anthony Lombardi said crime was up in the relatively quiet precinct because of the sharp rise in burglaries in January and February.
“Burglaries are pretty much the one thing we’ve been targeting constantly,” said Lombardi, who said officers have been distributing crime prevention literature throughout neighborhoods and urging residents to take advantage of the 111th’s crime prevention programs.
Earlier this year the 111th tackled the dramatic increase in burglaries in the precinct, which were highest in southern Bayside and sections of Douglaston and Little Neck near the Long Island Expressway, Lombardi said.
Lombardi said the burglaries have decreased since January and February, but “in this precinct it’s very hard to catch up.”
Burglaries were a problem in other areas of northern Queens in the first half of 2002 as well, with both the 109th Precinct in Flushing and Fresh Meadows’ 107th Precinct reporting increases in burglaries similar to the 111th’s.
The NYPD tracks crime statistics for seven major crime categories, including murder, rape, robbery, felonious assault, burglary, grand larceny and grand larceny auto.
In all, 711 crimes were reported in the first half of 2002, compared with 641 total incidents in the first six months of 2001, resulting in an increase of 10.9 percent, statistics show.
While auto theft, a perennial problem in the suburban neighborhoods of the 111th Precinct, continued to be the largest problem in the precinct, NYPD statistics reveal a startling rise in burglaries.
So far in 2002 there have been 202 burglaries in the 111th, compared to 107 in the same time period last year, resulting in an 88.7 percent jump, statistics show. Grand larceny was also on the rise, with 180 incidents reported in all of 2002, compared to 137 incidents in just the first half of 2001, for a 31.3 percent increase.
But percentages can be deceiving. For example, NYPD statistics show a 200 percent increase in rapes in the 111th Precinct so far in 2002 — there were three incidents reported between Jan. 1 and June 30 compared to one rape reported in 2001.
There were no murders in the 111th, either in the first six months of 2002 or the same time period in 2001.
Auto theft has been a longstanding problem for the precinct even as overall crime has dropped dramatically in the last decade. Despite the 9.6 percent decrease in car thefts in the first six months of 2002, grand larceny auto was still the most pressing issue in the northeast Queens precinct, with 252 incidents reported in the first half of the year.
Robbery also experienced a decrease in the 111th, with 48 incidents reported in the first six months of 2002, as opposed to 83 robberies in the same period last year. NYPD statistics show a 42.1 percent drop in robbery for the northeast Queens precinct.
Statistics revealed a 23.5 percent drop in felony assault in the 111th so far this year, with 26 incidents reported in the first six months of 2002, compared to 34 reported incidents in the same time in 2001.
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
