By Howard Koplowitz
A Bellerose civic leader helped thwart an attempted burglary last week when he called 911 after seeing three suspicious men pull up to a house and then put on hoods and gloves.
Jerry Wind, president of the Bellerose Hillside Civic Association, was looking out his window on 242nd Street at around 11:30 a.m. April 15 when he saw a car stop with three men inside.
“There was a black Nissan… they parked directly across the street from my house,” he said.
Wind was putting his cordless telephone into its base station, which is near his window, when he looked outside.
“I don’t know what it was, but I had a suspicion when I saw them,” he said.
Wind said two of the men first approached a home about six doors down from him, where two dogs lived, but left right away even though nobody was home.
“I noticed they were walking back and forth looking down the driveways,” he said.
They then targeted a home directly across the street from the house where they rang the bell, Wind said.
After nobody answered the bell to the second house, Wind said the two men walked back to the car to get the third suspect.
“They were all wearing hoodies,” Wind said, noting that two the men reached into their pockets and put on gloves.
Wind said the home’s owner had just left for work and the men went around and broke in through the back door when he and a neighbor called 911. Two police cruisers immediately arrived on the scene, he said.
“I saw the policemen drawing their guns,” Wind said.
He said the cops immediately arrested two of the suspects inside the home while the other ran towards Hillside Avenue, where officers eventually caught up to him and he was put under arrest.
Wind said the offices searched the car the suspects were riding in and found a box of jewelry. He said one of the officers told him one of the men was carrying a BB gun.
Wind is a regular attendee of the 105th Precinct Community Council meetings, where Cop of the Month is awarded to officers who make particularly outstanding arrests.
“I might get Private Citizen of the Month,” he quipped.
Reach reporter Howard Koplowitz by e−mail at hkoplowitz@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718−229−0300, Ext. 173.
