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General News: Village Police Try New Tactics with Juveniles
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| A party was held on this beach Friday night |
May 29, 2007
For the third time this month, Cornwall-on-Hudson police found teens and young adults at or near the elementary school with evidence of recent marijuana use and possession of beer late last week. They also busted up a party at the riverside Friday night. Police chief Charles Williams says these actions are part of a more proactive approach to stopping illegal activity before it leads to more petty crime.
Williams says the approach is designed to stop the behavior that can lead people to commit larceny or engage in criminal mischief that can harm residents. Last year police spent a lot of time chasing down these types of crimes but now Williams says their tactics have changed. “We understand why these crimes occur and want to catch it before it happens,” he says. “We are getting out early, hammering them early.”
So last Thursday evening, after police had been tipped off to a party planned down by the waterfront, more officers were added to look for signs.
One of those officers, Arthur Terwilliger, was on foot patrol at the elementary school, which continues to act as a magnet for teens who want to hang out and skate board.
As darkness fell, a Chevrolet Camaro carrying four teens between the ages of 16 and 18 sped up the entrance road in front of the school. The driver of the Camaro, a 16-year-old from Cornwall, received a ticket for driving with a restricted license. When the officer searched the car he found a marijuana pipe under the passenger’s side front seat and two empty plastic bags that he reported “smelled of marijuana.”
Two hours later, Officers Terwilliger and Michael Lug noticed a car parked across from the elementary school in the firehouse parking lot. Inside were four young males. Officer Terwilliger reports that he spotted a backpack in the car and asked what was inside of it. Soon he had arrested Michael McGuire, 20, of New Windsor, for unlawful possession of alcohol. A search of that car also turned up a marijuana pipe inside the glove box. The three 19-year-olds with McGuire, all town and village residents, were released.
Still looking for signs of a party, police on Thursday night stopped a man walking on Shore Road near the Scenic Technology building, a glass of beer in his hand. Police warned the 22-year-old man, who said he had just left the Castaways bar, and sent him on his way.
Police were back at the waterfront Friday night where they first investigated a fight on the railroad track by the Cornwall Yacht Club. A 17-year-old male from Highland Mills said that an 18-year-old Cornwall youth had assaulted him, though later investigation showed that it appeared to be a mutual conflict. The 18-year-old was charged with second-degree harassment.
Shortly after 1 a.m. that night Officer Seth Armstrong saw two cars parked across from Scenic Technology and he stopped to investigate. While behind the building, Armstrong heard juveniles on the other side of the railroad tracks. The party was apparently underway. Officer Armstrong could see 25 or more people on a beach near the water and with the New Windsor police they interviewed the kids and sent them on their way.
Williams says that while the teens are as bold as ever, the police are not waiting for them to commit petty crimes. “They can save their illegal and illicit activities for other places,” he says. “I bet by the end of the summer it will be quiet this year.”
Crimes reported by the village to the state of New York have been cut in half from their 2006 level Williams says. In 2006, he says, there were 32 crimes reported from January 1 to May 1. During the same period this year, the number has dropped to 13. The crime report showed a significant increase between 2005 and 2006.
Still, teens looking for a place to hang out come to the village elementary school. The vast majority of them are respectful of the law and of passersby but say they have no place else to go. A handful give the rest a bad reputation.
On May 11, village police arrested four male teenagers outside the school and charged two of them with possession of 10 grams of marijuana and two of them with possession of alcoholic beverages. The arrests occurred after a parent flagged down an officer in front of the school and said that he had just taken his child away from a group of juveniles and that his child smelled of alcohol.
Williams says he wrote to Cornwall schools superintendent Timothy Rehm begging him to enforce the district’s new code of conduct, particularly the part involving trespassing on school grounds.
Superintendent Rehm says that he wants to meet with both the village and the town’s police chiefs to discuss how to implement the new code, which was adopted earlier this spring. “Our plan is to meet and come up with a coordinated effort so students are aware of the consequences,” he says.
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