A couple of stories on the front page of The Hour explain the sirens blaring last night. It seams the heat wave and the crime wave are intertwined these days. Crime is rising, not just in Norwalk. The Mad-hatter robbed at least 17 banks over the past year, mostly in New jersey.
Think of bank robberies, and the image that comes to mind is probably a Hollywood version where Depression-era antiheroes like Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow leave with guns blazing.
The modern reality looks a lot more like the low-key work of the “Mad Hatter,” a New Jersey robber who apparently was armed only with a threatening note.
“These days, it’s pretty much pen ablazing on a piece of paper, the guy walking out and nobody knowing, other than the teller,” said Special Agent Steve Siegel, the bank robbery coordinator for the FBI’s Newark office.
Despite security, robbers often are able to get away from banks with their pockets full of cash _ though perhaps not as much as you’d think.
The “Mad Hatter” had an impressive run: 18 banks robbed and more than $60,000 taken over nearly a year, according to the FBI.
Lat night in Norwalk we saw;
A man firing a rifle on Lexington Avenue Friday night triggered a melee that led police to broadcast multiple calls for assistance, and resulted in an officer being injured.
Police received a call at 11:05 p.m. of gunshots at the William Moore Lodge No. 1533 at 92 Lexington Ave. When they arrived, people in the parking lot identified a man who lives next door to the lodge as the person who fired the gun.
Police said when they approached the alleged gunman, Jose Merino Jr., 29, of 90 Lexington Ave., he struggled with the officers and members of his family joined in the fracas.
With a crowd gathering around them in the lodge’s parking lot, officers repeatedly radioed for assistance, with one saying, “Headquarters, we need every officer employed by the Norwalk Police Department down here.”
The urgent call for assistance — a “Code 67″ in Norwalk police radio parlance — resulted in every available officer in the city responding to the South Norwalk address. Included was Det. Charles Perez, who said he was working an extra job as security at a movie being filmed on Carlin Street in the city’s northwest Cranbury neighborhood when he heard the call.
Meanwhile in another part of the city:
An elderly woman was stabbed in her leg early Saturday morning after confronting an apparent burglar in her home.
Police were notified at 4:38 a.m. of a burglary in progress at 40 Butler St. When they arrived, they found the woman wounded and had her transported to Norwalk Hospital.Based on officers’ reports of the incident, Sgt. David Wannagot said the victim called a relative for assistance, who called the police.
The victim told police she was awakened by a man in her bedroom, and as she fled the room he stabbed her before leaving her home.
But arrests don’t mean that crime goes away. The horrific triple-homicide home invasion in Cheshire of two parolees shows that the incarceration, parole and repeat cycle doesn’t work all that well.
A CATO Institute report puts crime and and root causes into statistical order:
* Crime in the United States is much higher than that reported to police but has probably not increased over the past 20 years.
* An increase in police appears to have no significant effect on the actual rate of violent crime and a roughly proportionate negative effect on the actual rate of property crime.
* An increase in corrections employees appears to have no significant effect on the violent crime rate and a small positive effect on the property crime rate.
* Crime rates are strongly affected by economic conditions. For example, an increase in per capita income appears to reduce both violent and property crime rates by a roughly proportionate amount.
* Crime rates are also affected by demographic and cultural conditions. For example, the violent crime rate increases with the share of births to single mothers.
* The demand for police and corrections employees is a negative function of the average salary of public employees, a positive function of per capita income and federal aid, and a positive function of the crime rates.
The major policy implication of this study is that, because we have so little knowledge of how to reduce crime, we should decentralize decisions on crime prevention and control, beginning with repeal of the 1994 federal crime law.
source: Washington Post, Modern Bank Robbers Are Low-Key, By GEOFF MULVIHILL, July 28, 2007
source: The Hour, Officer injured while subduing gunman, By HAROLD F. COBIN, July 29, 2007
source: The Hour, Police: Elderly woman stabbed in early morning home invasion, By HAROLD F. COBIN, July 29, 2007
