Brave officer foiled robbers, awarded Cop of the Month

Around 3 a.m. the 106th Precinct received an anonymous phone call about a robbery in Ozone Park.
Soon, officer Shelly Peralta, a slender 28-year-old woman who wears her black hair pulled back in a bun, reached the house where the crime was reportedly taking place. She saw a man and a woman standing in front of the building, at 123rd Street and 109th Avenue.
At this point, Peralta had no idea that this woman was a victim of the robbery she was responding to, and that the man with her was one of the perpetrators.
And, of course, she had no idea that almost a month later, on Wednesday, December 10, she would receive a Cop of the Month honor because of how she handled the situation.
Peralta’s only thought at that time was that something was wrong - the man was holding the woman forcibly. The woman, who seemed to be in her early 20s, looked scared. Although it was raining, the only thing she was wearing was a brown coat. Her legs were bare and she had no shoes on.
Peralta pulled the woman aside, hoping to elicit information from her about what was going on. Before the woman could even utter a word, she opened her jacket to reveal her naked body.
She explained that this man, along with two other men, had broken into her apartment, on the second floor of the house. The other two men, she said, were upstairs beating her boyfriend and she was afraid that they might kill him.
When Peralta got inside the house, accompanied by another officer, she found the two robbers with cell phones, a DVD player and other objects from the house in their hands. One of the men was also holding a hammer. The woman’s boyfriend had a bruised face, but he immediately looked relieved when he saw the officers.
Peralta arrested the perpetrators, who are now in jail. That night, the victims were the only ones in the two-story house; their downstairs neighbors were not home. The thieves had gotten in by breaking the front door latch, Peralta explained.
“I feel good,” she said about receiving the honor. “I was just doing my job though.”
Peralta, who lives in Ozone Park, admitted that this was one of the more difficult tasks that she has had to handle in her four-year career as an officer. “I was a little scared, but my main concern was getting those victims safe,” she said.
The honor was given to Peralta by Captain Joseph Courtesis during the 106th Precinct’s monthly Community Council meeting. He said Peralta’s performance is indicative of his precinct’s efficiency, noting that it ranked 10th in the city in response time.
However, the crime was also indicative of the nearly 5 percent increase in robberies since the same time last year, according to CompStat records.
This year, 316 robberies have occurred, compared to 302 in 2007.
Grand larceny is up by 6.4 percent so far in 2008, versus the same time last year. This year, 382 cases of larceny have taken place, up from 359.
But the past year has seen a decrease of 10 percent in burglaries, CompStat figures reveal – 279 cases have occurred so far in 2008, down from 311.