Detective Pleckaitis and Det. Sgt. Gartner.
When the city’s management teams gather for their monthly meetings, there’s often a police officer present — usually the district manager — to provides the monthly report of crime stats and what to look out for.
Starting this month there will be a new — and additional — officer in each of the city’s ten management team meetings, with a more specific role: checking in on robberies and burglaries.
On the East Shore, that will be Detective John Pleckaitis. He was introduced at Tuesday night’s meeting of the East Shore Management Team as the detective assigned to the district.
That unit’s supervisor, Sgt. Derek Gartner, was on hand to introduce Pleckaitis, a ten-year-veteran of the force, as the management team’s liaison to the robbery and burglary unit.
The detectives and East Shore Management Team Acting Chair Lisa Milone.
“He’ll come to every month’s meeting to answer all your questions. We know Morris Cove is not plagued by violence, but quality of life issues. He’ll be the liaison between you and the detective bureau,” Gartner explained.
He said the program, the brainchild of Lt. Otoniel Reyes, the commander of the detective bureau, is being made possible in part by the increased number of officers filling out the department’s ranks. Gartner said his office had been down to seven detectives but is now up to nine. That means that each detective will have one police district or management team district to cover, with one detective covering two.
The idea was an instant hit with the 15 people attending the regular meeting of the management team in the community room of the Engine 16 Firehouse at the corner of Lighthouse Point Road and Townsend Avenue.
“I think it’s great you’re doing this,” said longtime resident Walter Josephson.
Gartner was at pains to point out that Pleckaitis will not necessarily be assigned to each and every robbery or burglary that occurs in the East Shore.
Rather he will act as liaison and public educator about crime prevention, and will attend the meetings on a regular basis.
Gartner said neighbors in another district were concerned about financial scams and frauds perpetrated on the elderly. In that instance the burglary/robbery unit detective might, hearing of the need, bring in the department’s expert on financial crimes to talk to management team meeting attendees and have a conduit thereby to distribute security information.
“Isn’t the East Side large? Doesn’t that warrant two detectives?” asked former Morris Cover Alder Arlene DePino.
Both Pleckaitis and Gartner acknowledged that the East Side officers must cover all incidents from the Lighthouse up to the North Haven border, and that stretches resources.
Henry Farkas, another neighbors, asked if the detectives at least might tell him if a plan to split the East Side into two more manageable districts is still on the table.
“I think they’re making slow progress” on it, Gartner responded.
Discussion ensued about the recent robbery of the Krauszer’s convenience store at the Lighthouse Point Road and Townsend Avenue intersection. The perpetrator, a suspect in two other area robberies, was high on drugs at the time, Gartner reported.
That prompted an audience member to point out how many of the robberies and burglaries are drug-related.
“We could arrange for someone from the narcotics unit to come, maybe this summer,” Gartner replied.
Another audience member suggested that Pleckaitis could pursue bad guys more efficiently if he monitors the East Side bloggers who write about crime in the area.
Both detectives said the blogging is all fine and good. However, “without a complaint to pursue, we can’t follow through,” Gartner said.
Another audience member asked what, from the robbery/burglary unit’s biggest concern in the area. Gartner replied that it is an uptick in car break-ins. He mentioned the specific pattern of tire theft, particularly from Hondas.
“If you have any information or video on such matters, get them to our detective,” he said.
The meeting ended with Pleckaitis giving attendees general tips on how to avoid car break-ins. They include leaving absolutely no money, even a few coins, visible; or electronic cords or bags, even crummy plastic bags.
The thief doesn’t know that there’s nothing in the bag, Pleckaitis said. If a person is high, he’ll break the window to grab two quarters visible in a console, because that will get him that much closer to the drug money they need, he cautioned.
“And they are incredibly quick,” he said.