By Adam Pincus
City Councilman Hiram Monserrate (D-Corona) praised the Police Department for the arrests, but said the public was notified too slowly about numerous crimes in the park that occurred during November and December.”I am critical of their response,” City Councilman Hiram Monserrate (D-Corona) said. “The department has to do a better job” of notifying people of the attacks. Borough President Helen Marshall would not criticize the response, but wanted to know why neighbors were not alerted earlier, her spokesman Dan Andrews said.”She would like to know why eight or nine attacks took place before” the word was put out, he said. Between Nov. 20 and Dec. 25 there were at least 12 attacks in the park, including three assaults involving a machete.In contrast, there were only 28 robberies and assaults in Central Park for all of 2006, Police Department records show. On Dec. 2 two men were robbed by a pair of men with a machete, prosecutors said.Two days later, Carlos Flores, 40, of Ridgewood was robbed and killed with a machete on Dec. 4, his body deeply gashed, then dumped in a pond in the park, the Queens district attorney said. Authorities recovered a machete during the investigation of the crimes, a law enforcement source said.Police did not tell the public that there had been a murder in the park until after Rivera was arrested, instead releasing a vague statement on Dec. 5 that a dead body had been found in a pond in the park.The final attack on Christmas Day left a Little Neck man in a coma.The public was not informed about the pattern of Queens attacks until the next day.Reach reporter Adam Pincus by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
