By Cynthia Koons
In mid-June, the precinct was told it was ranked first in the city in terms of crime reduction, Community Affairs Officer Joseph Conelli said. As of Tuesday there were no confirmed statistics as to how the station ranked for the first six months of the year in relation to the entire city.
In comparison with the first six months of last year and the first six months of this year, the 109th Precinct managed to cut rape in half, maintain the same number of murders and cut the number of felony assaults, burglaries and grand larcenies.
Commanding Officer Thomas Cea was on vacation when the statistics were released and could not comment on the precinct's improvements.
Within the past six months there have been two murders in the 109th Precinct, which covers Flushing, College Point, Whitestone and Bay Terrace. Six rapes were reported in the last six months compared with the 12 from January to June 2003.
The precinct also slashed burglaries by 105 incidents to 246 cases in the latest period, grand larceny by 25 to 577 cases and felony assaults by 12 to 131 cases.
The total number of major crimes – which include murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and grand larceny auto – dropped from 1,689 incidents in the first six months of 2003 to 1,412 in the beginning of 2004.
Notable arrests included the crackdown on an alleged prostitution ring at Bool Ggot restaurant in late May, in which the 109th Precinct participated in an investigation that ended with the arrest of Youkyung Jeong in Bayside.
Jeong was charged with coercion and promoting prostitution after a woman told police she was being forced to have sex with customers in order to pay off debts imposed by Jeong, the police reported.
Earlier in the year, two Sunnyside men were arrested after allegedly being spotted breaking into a College Point home. Their arrests were part of a larger burglary crackdown that spanned the 107th, 109th and 111th precincts in northeast Queens in April.
As part of another lengthy investigation, police from the 109th Precinct finally made the arrest of a suspect who was linked to the shooting of two men July 5, 2003 but fled to Vermont where he was discovered in a drug raid at his Burlington apartment.
Robberies dropped to 146 in the opening half of 2004 from 184 a year earlier, while auto theft declined to 304 incidents from 395 the year before.
The six-month police statistics spanned the time period from Jan. 1 through June 27.
Reach reporter Cynthia Koons by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 141.
