By Carol Tannenhauser
The police called it “grand larceny auto,” but neighborhood chatter said a newspaper deliverywoman had been “carjacked and mugged” this morning “on Riverside Drive.” Police put the time at around 4:02 a.m. and the address at “West End Avenue in the vicinity of West 86th Street.”
The NYPD report proved incomplete. According to a police spokesperson, a woman had gotten out of her car, leaving it “open with the ignition on,” when an unknown person got into the car and “drove away.” The police spokesperson also said the owner of the car had “tried to get back into the passenger seat to stop it, but was unsuccessful.”
This all makes more sense in light of a post on Next Door by Susan Gold this morning around 10 a.m., announcing, “Newspaper delivery lady carjacked and mugged! The very reliable lady who delivers my paper every day to my building on the UWS just got mugged and her car stolen on Riverside Drive.”
WSR spoke to Gold who said she had heard the story from her doorman. Her doorman heard it from the substitute newspaper deliveryperson.
WSR confirmed the incident with Jack and Myrna, both managers at Mitchell’s NY, the home and office delivery company where the deliveryperson who was allegedly attacked works. “We have a report that two drivers had problems,” Jack said. “One car was taken, one was not.”
We reached out to Mitchell’s vice president for further details, and are awaiting a return call.
Update, Thursday, August 10, 11:20 a.m.: WSR spoke to Alan Rafal, vice president of Mitchell’s NY, who confirmed and clarified the details of the incident. “Thank God, the deliveryperson is okay,” he said, immediately. “There was no weapon involved…she was shaken up.”
Rafal said it is not unusual for newspaper carriers to leave their cars running and unlocked as they dash out to deliver papers — despite being warned regularly against it. “In this day and age you can’t do it,” Rafal said. “The criminal jumped in the passenger side. She tried to get back into the driver’s seat, but he pushed her out and drove away.” He added that “last week the same thing happened to another driver, but he managed to scare him off.”
On the bright side, the deliveryperson’s car was later found — “with some damage,” Rafal said. “No one should get out of their car with it running and unlocked under any circumstances,” he reiterated, “even just to toss a coffee cup in a trash can!”
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I don’t recall such rampant, brazen crime during the good old days of stop-and-frisk.
It’s interesting that you bring up the “good old days” of stop-and-frisk as a supposed solution to crime. Let’s not forget that stop-and-frisk disproportionately targeted marginalized communities, particularly Black and Brown individuals. It was a policy that perpetuated systemic racism and violated the rights of countless innocent people.
Crime is a complex issue, and it cannot be simply attributed to one specific policy. The root causes of crime are often linked to socioeconomic inequalities, lack of access to education, job opportunities, and affordable housing. Instead of glorifying policies that disproportionately target and oppress communities, we should be advocating for systemic changes that address the underlying issues. Policing in its current form often functions to protect the interests of the ruling class while suppressing dissent and maintaining the status quo.
So, before glorifying past policies that only deepened divisions and infringed upon civil rights, let’s consider the bigger picture and work toward a society where everyone’s needs are met and true justice prevails, rather than perpetuating a system that perpetuates harm and injustice.
“stop and frisk” still exists. Police can stop and frisk for probably cause.
What doesn’t exist anymore, thankfully, was stop and frisk with racial profiling. this was the policy under Bloomberg, and was a racist Jim Crow policy. Bloomberg made no attempt to deny that the NYPD was employing racial profiling and even tried to justify it.
Under this policy, almost every dark skinned male in NYC under approx age 40 was stopped and frisked many times, usually with no cause nor suspicion except the color of their skin. Up to 1 million s&fs of this type took place each year at the peak.
It had no effect on crime, as the lowest crime rates in NYC were under De Blasio, with no racial profiling.
If you want to bring this policy back, at least be honest about what it was: jim Crow policing.
I wonder how many guns were left at home for fear of being stopped?
correction: the highest number of s&fs in NYC was 686,000 in 2011.
You never heard of a person jumping into a car that’s been left with the door open and the engine running?
This is a common occurrence. It’s nationwide.
“A recent NICB report analyzed vehicle theft data from 2019 through 2021 and found an increase of more than 20% in thefts facilitated by keys. This also includes vehicle thefts where key fobs were left inside the vehicle. By the end of 2021, just over 100,000 thefts facilitated by keys or key fobs were reported nationally. This total accounts for 11% of vehicle thefts of all types reported in the U.S. in 2021.”
But yeah, let’s make it about the UWS.
So you want to replace one crime with another? A virtual police state is the much worse option.
Stop and frisk wasn’t a crime and helped with curving actual violent crimes till virtue signallers outlawed it and caused all sort of negative consequences.
No, stop and frisk is unconstitutional, which is more than a crime.
stop and frisk was never found to be unconstitutional by the supreme court. NYC just didn’t go forward with the case as liberal deblasio came into the picture.
Technically the bill of rights only applies to the Federal government. NYPD conducting stop and frisk wouldn’t violate the federal constitution in that case.
Stop and frisk ended around 2013 after a federal court order ruled it illegal.
Yet, crime went down in the next seven years; in 2020 crime was 15% lower than in the last year of stop and frisk.
There are other strategies that the PD can use, most obviously broken windows. And that’s what’s missing in this era of general disregard for such as the rules of the road, fare jumping, etc.
I’m not sure which media entities continue to tell their readership that stop and frisk was needlessly discontinued, but I’m betting they’re owned by a 90something Australian.
Please get your facts straight.
a) stop and frisk did not reduce crime; and b) stop and frisk was stopped by a judge who ruled that the way it was being employed was unconstitutional
NO ONE should ever leave a car door open with the ignition running, especially on the UWS. Hard lesson, painfully learned.
We had a problem with our NY Times being repeatedly taken off our stoop (~100 st). We had a number of calls with the 3rd party service that delivers the papers and they told us that people follow their delivery folks and take the papers. And the delivery people have been told, rightly so, not to confront the thieves. Keep in mind this happens around 4:30am every night. We solved our problem with a simple foyer key. But sadly there was a lapse in judgement that led to this driver leaving the car open and running unattended. But we need to own the issue of the growing number homeless druggies, especially on Broadway, living under every scaffold and in front of every weed store, who will scrounge whatever they can…
One of my friends in Summit, NJ reports that two of her neighbors have had their cars stolen when they were parked in front of their garage – because they had left their keyfobs in the car. All the thieves had to do was open the door, get in the car, and drive off. Distracted Moms 🙂
NY State Penal Law 160.05: Robbery in the 3rd Degree: A person is guilty of Robbery 3 when that person FORCIBLY STEALS PROPERTY.
As soon as that person shoved the car owner out of the car when they tried to get back in the driver’s seat, the crime changed from grand larceny to robbery and should have been reported as such. (not “grand larceny auto”)
This is why crime stats need to be ingested with a grain of salt. Under-reporting has been going on for years.
Who gets a physical newspaper anymore? By the time you get it ,its yesterdays news.
We do. A little civilized pleasure in the midst of the technological onslaught we must live with today.
Well, I for one do it, and take pleasure in sitting in the park with the “physical newspaper.” Staring for yet more long periods at a computer screen, whether the desktop or the little one in your hand, is not the same experience to me as “reading the paper”, though I also read news online.