What the hell is SCA thinking?

From the Times Ledger:

Corona desperately needs another school, residents and members of Community Board 4 agreed, but they balked Tuesday night at the city’s plan to put it next to a firehouse, on a street with no sidewalks and on a property that would force out a local business that has been there for 28 years.

CB 4 voted almost unanimously against the proposal for the 612-seat K-8 school the School Construction Authority hopes to build at 97-36 43rd Ave. on a 40,000-square-foot, L-shaped lot that abuts both 44th and 43rd avenues.

Police Officer Jeanine Rivera of the 110th Precinct also warned that constructing a school on 43rd Avenue could pose a safety risk for squad cars, which often use the street as a main conduit from the precinct house to the rest of the neighborhood.

Rivera also pointed out the fact that the school would be located closer to a chicken slaughterhouse than the station house, where, “spring summer and fall, the smell out of there is ridiculous.”

Result of last night's full moon?

From the Daily News:

A career criminal took an NYPD highway patrol vehicle with a loaded shotgun inside for a joy ride early Saturday - after an absent-minded cop left it running by a Bronx coffee shop, sources said.

Anibal Lugo, 48, hopped in the idle Jeep Tahoe and took it for a spin while the cop went for breakfast at the Lydig Coffee Shop in Morris Park about 7 a.m.

"This is the embarrassing part - he goes into a coffee shop and leaves the vehicle running," said a police source. "The perp jumps into the car and takes off."

Lugo, who sources said was a local resident with mental problems, drove the marked vehicle over the Whitestone Bridge and the whole way to the LaGuardia Airport parking lot.

That's where a Port Authority cop spotted the vehicle, secured it, and arrested Lugo inside the U.S. Airways Terminal.

"They found the guy in the terminal, walking around with the cop's cuffs, clipboard and some other stuff," said the source. "He kind of presented himself. He was acting a little erratic."

Rumblers for the urban jungle

This is a story that needs to be told. On Sunday, the NYPD quietly announced that their fleet of patrol cars are being upgraded with "The Rumbler" a powerful siren that can be heard and felt. Here is now the news media is generally reporting it:

NYPD car sirens to vibrate

Here is what they are not reporting:

The vibrations can be heard and felt up to 200 feet away and can travel right through glass and solid objects. According to its manufacturer Federal Signal Corporation, the siren "have the distinct advantage of penetrating and shaking solid materials allowing vehicle operators and nearby pedestrians to FEEL the sound waves, and perhaps even see their effects through a shaking rearview mirror."

In other words, this ear-splitting noise will be heard and felt by motorists, pedestrians and people in their own homes and apartments at a level that can cause permanent hearing damage (the company even advises operators to wear hearing protection) and seriously disrupt their lives and ability to sleep at night. The NYPD purchased and installed the equipment with no oversight, no public hearings, and with no evident liability for the massive noise pollution they are about to inflict on New Yorkers, all in the name of public safety.

The media and legislators are not asking critical questions and New Yorkers are going to pay for that when the sirens are in widespread use by the police. People assume that noise pollution is an irritant or an annoyance, but noise pollution is a public health issue and it is adversely affecting residents. For people who live near any of the dozens of police precincts around the city and the boroughs, this is going to be an acoustic nightmare.

The NoiseOFF website has a section on The Rumbler to serve as a warning about the unintended consequences on this technology. You can see it here (you can also download the company product sell-sheet to see how this is marketed to police departments nationwide):

NoiseOff

The comments above are my own and you can quote me.

Regards,

Richard Tur
Founder, NoiseOFF.org

P.S., NoiseOFF.org was founded in Astoria, Queens -- the perfect storm of urban noise pollution.

Police car hit by bullet

From NY1:

The search is on for whoever fired the shot that struck a police car in Queens Saturday night.

Police say a single bullet shattered the car's back window around 8 p.m. on Beach Channel Drive in the Rockaways.

Neither of the two officers in the car was injured.

Local residents say violence in the area is on the rise.

"It's a constant thing that happens out here in Rockaway. Every week it's something else, either a shooting or something like this. And the violence needs to be stopped," said one Rockaways resident.

It's still not clear whether the police car was the intended target of the shooting.

Did the 104 go apeshit on horn honker?

Bronx version of Beavis and Butthead

From the Daily News:

Two numskulls busted for drinking in public decided to get even by torching a cop car.

Trouble was, they set the fire in front of an NYPD stationhouse - and were promptly arrested again, police said.

"Braniacs these boys are not," said one police source.