By Albert Amateau
More than 30 officers from the Ninth Precinct were honored at the East Village precinct’s annual award ceremony last week at The Cooper Union’s Great Hall.
Commanding Officer Deputy Inspector Kenneth Lehr and Jerry Shea, Ninth Precinct Community Council president, on Wed., Oct. 19, presented citations to the honorees, which also included the precinct’s civilian aide, Desiree Angus; Auxiliary Police Officer Gilbert Arce; and an Eastside High School senior, Alexander Egyud, who is the lieutenant executive officer of the Ninth Precinct’s Explorers Unit.
Officers Shinji Suzuki and Michael Jurena were honored for calming and rescuing a distraught woman on Oct. 29, 2010, when she was threatening to jump from an E. Second St. rooftop.
Five officers, including Sergeant Michael Fabitti and Katherine Keating, Richard Grant, Natasha Deleon and Joanna Lopez, were honored for rushing into a burning 12-story building on E. Fourth St. on Nov. 11 of last year, evacuating apartments and getting elderly and infirm residents to safety.
Officers Sean Corbett and Michael O’Brien responded to a stabbing on St. Mark’s Place, helped stabilize the seriously injured victim, then tracked down and arrested two suspects who were subsequently convicted of attempted murder.
Sergeant Michael Katinas and Officers Sergio De La Mota and Daniel Silverio were honored for spotting three known robbery suspects while on a robbery pattern location on Feb. 4 of this year. They arrested the three suspects as they attempted to rob a lone victim.
Officers John Sivori and Edward Thompson were honored for spotting and arresting two suspects, a man and a woman, this Jan. 14, just three days after the suspects were recorded on a surveillance tape brutally robbing a woman entering her building. The man had 20 prior arrests, including robberies and assaults.
Sergeant Robert Chang and Officers Maria Veliz, Michael Giuffre, Thomas Gallagher and Christopher Delmar were honored for tracking down and arresting a suspect wanted for four knifepoint late-night robberies of women in the precinct between Dec, 19, 2010, and Feb. 6 of this year.
Officers Nicholas Mina and Paul Jurgens were honored for apprehending a wanted burglar in August of last year on Avenue A and E. Fourth St. Earlier, Mina and Jurgens had stopped and frisked a man acting suspiciously on Avenue A, but they did not have evidence to arrest him. Later, in the precinct muster room they saw a picture of the man they had stopped on a “Ten Most Wanted” poster and discovered the suspect had given them a false name. Mina and Jurgens returned to Avenue A at 5 a.m. on Aug. 17 and arrested the wanted man an hour later.
Sergeant Peter Massa and Officers Toni DeLorenzo, Karinn Young and Neal Pero made two separate robbery arrests on Oct. 8 and Oct. 27 of last year. In the first case, the four cops responded to a robbery in progress at First Ave. and E. 12th St. and were told by the victim that the suspect threatened to shoot him if he didn’t give up his property. They broadcast a description of the robber and arrested him themselves a short time later on Avenue D at E. 10th St. In the second case, they tracked down and arrested two men who had just robbed a Mobil gas station on E. Second St.
Five officers among the newest group assigned to the precinct were honored for distinguished work. This year through the month of September, their combined arrests totaled 191, including for robbery, burglary and felony assault. The honored rookies are Officers Isreal Sanchez Escobar, James Woods, James Luongo, Michael Fratangelo and Robert Ceci.
Lieutenant Patrick G. Ferguson, the precinct’s special operations supervisor, coordinates crime and quality-of-life conditions, including executing search warrants, investigating fencing operations, conducting multiagency operations, underage drinking enforcement and using nuisance-abatement proceedings to close down unlawful conditions. He was named by the Community Council as the Supervisor of the Year.
Two members of the precinct Detectives Squad, Detectives Robert Ronne and Eric Ocasio, were also honored. Ronne and others responded in August of last year to a shooting and stabbing on E. 13th St. where three victims, one shot and stabbed, another stabbed and the third assaulted, had been celebrating a family event. Ronne identified two suspects with extensive criminal records, located two guns and charged the suspects with felony assault, weapons possession and reckless endangerment.
Ocasio investigated the fatal shooting this April of a 32-year-old man behind a building on Avenue C. A suspect who left the state was identified, but Ocasio stuck with the case, caught up with the suspect and got a written and oral confession. The man was convicted of second-degree murder and is serving a prison sentence.
