Jun. 21, 2023 By Anthony Medina
The efforts to rid Glendale, Maspeth, Middle Village, and Ridgewood neighborhoods of illegally parked and unregistered vehicles are plastered all over the 104th Precinct’s Twitter page.
In June, officers at the 104th Precinct are keeping true to their promise, with more Twitter posts showcasing confiscated vehicles from city streets.
On Sunday, June 17, The 104th Precinct’s Twitter page shared four images of unregistered motorbikes that were confiscated. The next day, on Sunday, June 18, the 104th Precinct posted an image of six confiscated illegal motorbikes that were allegedly taken away from reckless drivers.
“Great take em all off the streets and those stand-up scooters too!!!” one Twitter user commented.
“There goes our Uber [Eats] drivers,” wrote another Twitter user.
Deputy Inspector Kevin Coleman, the commanding officer of the 104th Percent, told QNS about the strategy behind the frequent Twitter posts. The posts are a continued effort to show the work of officers who address quality-of-life community concerns, he said.
“Last year … we wrote over 11,000, parking summonses from 311. And there’s 22 precincts in Manhattan. All 22 Manhattan precincts combined wrote just over 9,000. So we wrote like almost 2,000 more summonses than all the Manhattan precincts combined,” Coleman said.
According to Coleman, the 104th Precinct confiscated 162 bikes since the start of this year and issued 507 related summonses. Officers also made 24 arrests in connection with illegal motorbike activity.
“… When I’m talking about bikes, tows, tow trucks, all these different quality of life things … we know this is a big problem in the community. People complain about it and these are issues that you can really only combat with enforcement,” Coleman added.
Last year, Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell held a joint conference as the NYPD flattened an abundance of confiscated illegal ATVs and motorbikes in Brooklyn.
Year-to-date, as of March 31, members of the Patrol Services Bureau have seized and vouchered more than 1,600 motorcycles, ATVs, scooters/mopeds and dirt bikes, according to the NYPD.
The total number of seized illegal motorized vehicles includes ATVs, scooters, mopeds and dirt bikes through daily patrol, operations and related incidents where they were possessed by the NYPD, according to a police spokesperson.
“At the end of the day, every precinct, to be fair, a lot goes on. You can have a very high volume of 911 calls and all kinds of various crime happens. And I think it’s very easy for some quality-of-life issues just to kind of get overlooked.” said Coleman when asked why the 104th Precinct has been more effective in tackling quality-of-life issues compared to neighboring precincts.
Coleman emphasized the precinct is committed to resolving quality of life issues and will continue to work toward that goal with focused law enforcement units.