By Gary Buiso
Tech-savvy cops received top honors this week for rushing to the aid of a woman who was allegedly the victim of ‘iPod oblivion.’ For their efforts, Officers Richard Reilly and Tamar Keaton were named “Cops of the Month” at the 84th Precinct Community Council. The officers were responding to a woman who was the victim of an accident at 3rd Avenue and Bergen Street. According to Leslie Lewis, the president of the precinct council, the woman had apparently been jogging with “an iPod in her ear.” Allegedly unaware of her surroundings, the woman “smacked into the side of a tour bus,” Lewis said. She was knocked unconscious. The officers rushed to the scene, and saw there was no identification on the victim. Thinking quickly, they realized they could check the registration number on the iPod with Apple Computer, Inc., the manufacturer of the device, to help identify her and alert her family. “It’s a great job that they did,” said Captain Alan Abel, the commanding officer of the precinct. “We take our job personally out there,” Abel said, adding that the officers did not want the victim to be hospitalized alone. Securing the woman’s name, the cops alerted her husband, who was able to join her at the hospital with her two small children. The woman is doing better, the cops said. “This woman was a mother and a wife,” Abel said. The officers were “thinking out of the box and were innovative, and helped get her family with her in a real time of crisis.” State Senator Carl Kruger recently introduced legislation that would make it illegal to use any portable electronic device, including iPods, while crossing the street. Violators could face a $100 fine and a criminal court summons. Kruger said he has recognized a phenomenon he dubbed ‘iPod oblivion’ sweeping the state. “People are oblivious to the world around them—and that’s not safe,” he told this paper.
