The statistics, which were also divided by precinct, showed that minorities were even more likely to be stopped in wealthier areas of Manhattan like the Upper West Side. In the 20th precinct, for instance, 77 percent of stops were minorities, even though only 21 percent of Upper West Side residents are minorities. This disparity has long angered local community leaders.

“Stop and frisk is a wildly discriminatory practice,” said Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal.  “It only serves to make those who are stopped mistrust law enforcement. I fail to see how the city can even justify this.”

According to Robert Gangi, the director of PROP, the Police Reform Organization Project, people on the street can only be stopped if they look suspicious, or are committing a crime. In addition, police can also stop an individual if they fit the description of a known criminal in the area. Gangi said that although this practice is legal, sometimes police officers go over the top.

“There’s a lot of pressure for police to meet their quotas and in a desperate effort to do so, they will engage in unwarranted or illegal stops,” Gangi said.

According to NYPD statistics, however, not only did stop-and-frisks increase steadily from over 540,000 in 2008 to almost 686,000 in 2011, but crime has also steadily decreased. Murders are down 43 percent, and this year, on Nov. 26, not a single person was reported stabbed, shot or slashed, according to the NYPD.

Nick Viest, the chair of the 19th precinct community council on the Upper East Side, said that he supports the NYPD stop-and-frisk policies.

“From what I’ve witnessed, they’ve handled these things very professionally and appropriately,” Viest said. “When you look at these statistics at face value, people get concerned, but they are responding to specific descriptions. They are doing the job necessary to keep the community safe.”

As far as stopping those who fit a certain description, Victor Goode, a professor at the CUNY School of Law, said that he doesn’t quite buy that explanation.

“Let’s say there’s a report of purse-snatching by a young African-American male, 14 to 16 years old,” Goode said. “When the suspect is characterized as broadly as that, it gives them an excuse to stop almost anyone.”

Next month, Darius Charney, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and his colleagues, will try to challenge the constitutionality of NYPD stop-and-frisk practices like these. However, he did stress that stop-and-frisk is not an illegal police tactic in and of itself.

“Their argument that black and Latino people are more likely to commit crimes is not the best, because these are law-abiding folks that are being stopped,” Charney said. “Are you saying that blacks and Latinos are more likely to look suspicious?”

The trial, “Floyd vs. The City of New York,” a lawsuit, is set to begin on March 11.

Phantom Furniture
An employee at the furniture store  was fired and reported to police for using a little too much imagination on the job. The 21-year-old worker processed fraudulent returns for inventory that never existed, then allegedly sold the store credit to friends to purchase more furniture at the store. The total stolen credit was for $3,449.17.

Hot Spot Targeted
The owner of a popular Upper West Side restaurant learned last week that his business had been the victim of fraud. The man’s bank contacted him to inform him that two fraudulent checks had been drawn on his business checking account and deposited into a different account at another bank. The two checks were for $3,189.76 each; the victim had no idea who might have access to his account information.

Phone Thefts Abound
Criminals are still on the lookout for iPhones and other expensive smart phones, and the victims are often young teens walking home from school. One recent theft in the neighborhood occurred when a man approached a woman and asked for the time; when she checked her iPhone and put it back in her purse, the perp grabbed it from her bag and ran away. Other incidents involve two perpetrators approaching young kids and intimidating them into giving up their phones.

Pricey Instruments Taken
A 24-year-old musician was dining late at night with her friend at a bar on the Upper West Side last Friday night. She placed her French horn in its case at her feet, and she and her companion left the bar briefly before she remembered the instrument. By the time she returned five minutes later, the $8,000 horn was gone, and the bartender said he had seen a man come in and leave with the bag.
The same day at the Juilliard School, a 19-year-old student was practicing violin in one of the practice rooms. She left the instrument in the room to pack up her things, and when she got it back to her dorm room and opened the case, the double-bass bow, worth $1,700, was missing.

Silent Hold-Up
A man walked into the Apple Bank on Broadway last Friday during the day and conducted a robbery without saying a word. He held up a handwritten note to the plexiglass of the teller window that read “I have a gun, no dye pack, no bait, $50 bills and $100 bills, this is a robbery.” The teller forked over $1,700 in cash as instructed, which the perp placed into a black nylon bag. The robber is described as a white 30-year-old man with grey hair.

Spending Spree
Upon checking her monthly credit card statements, a local woman discovered that someone had made unauthorized charges on her Bloomingdale’s card account, in three separate purchases, to the tune of $3,952.17. The statement didn’t reveal where the charges had been made—it could have been at any Bloomingdale’s location or online—but the woman told police that she has been in possession of her credit card the entire time. She also received a call from the customer service department of electronics store P.C. Richard & Sons informing her that they had cancelled a suspicious transaction that was attempted online, again using her credit card.

Family Squabble Turns Into Police Matter
A woman called the police on her 18-year-old daughter after a family spat turned criminal. The daughter told her mom that she had stolen her wedding ring, telling her that she knew it would hurt her. When the mother, whom police report already had an order of protection against her daughter, checked, her custom-made ring was indeed missing. The daughter said that she had sold the ring, made of yellow metal and white stone and worth $1,150, to a friend, who confirmed the story to police. He also said that the thieving daughter had used the money to fund a trip upstate to purchase cigarettes and alcohol.

Love Steals
After trying and failing to retrieve his stolen property from his vindictive boyfriend, a man resorted to the police last week. He told the cops that he had invited his boyfriend into his home, but that night the perpetrator scooped up his iPhone, a $350 pair of pants and his Chase credit card and left the apartment. He then called his victim, informing him of the thefts, but refused to return the property when given the chance. Police found several calls made to the iPhone before the man could cancel his phone account and credit card.

Sidewalk Knockout
A mom playing with her kids outside her home on Saturday night got a rude awakening that ended in a robbery and assault. A man she knew approached her and the two got into a verbal argument. It turned violent, however, when a second man, a friend of the other, stepped in, swore at the woman and hit her twice in the face, causing severe pain. She took out her phone and said she was calling the police, and the perp grabbed it out of her hands and ran down Amsterdam Avenue. Police conducted a canvass but have not located the man.

Illustration by Thomas James

New York is a city with a booming elderly population—there are over 3.4 million people over the age of 65 living here. With that aging population come the predators who single out older victims for their nefarious swindles. In an age of small-time Internet scams and big-time Ponzi schemes, everyone is a potential victim of financial crimes, but the elderly are particularly at risk and are often targeted by would-be criminals.

Take, for example, the case of an 82-year-old widow living on the Upper East Side. The
elderly victim was robbed of $53,000 over a period of several months as 30-year-old Sylvester McCoy stole checks from her home and forged her signature many times over. Or think of the example, perhaps made worse by the victim-perpetrator relationship, of Peter Wilde, who abused the power of attorney he exercised over his aging parents to steal over $1 million from the couple. Or the case of Carolyn Turner, a home aide to an 81-year-old woman living on the Upper West Side, who stole over $25,000 from her employer. Turner swiped the victim’s debit cards and forged checks without her permission in order to make credit card and car payments not only for herself but for her adult children as well.

These are just a few of the cases that have been prosecuted in the past year, and those only show the crimes that are reported and solved, an outcome not always feasible
for elderly victims. “What is common for all these and for so many elder abuse cases is they take place based on existing relationships, whether it’s a home health aide, a family member or someone trusted and known to the senior—that’s the vulnerability that the defendant takes advantage of,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance in an interview.

The Elder Abuse unit in the DA’s office specifically investigates and prosecutes
cases of financial fraud and other types of elder abuse. They take on roughly 650 cases each year and work to prevent crimes; Vance has spoken at senior centers around the city, hoping to give seniors the tools they need to recognize suspicious situations and the confidence to report crimes when they happen. “There is just an enhanced vulnerability when you get older,” Vance said. “There is a reluctance to either know what’s going on or, even if you know what’s going on, to have the courage to report it because it might be people who are in fact taking care of you.”

Sometimes, the person is not a family member but someone an older person
has come to trust. The Council of Senior Centers and Services (CSC), an umbrella group that represents New York City’s senior centers, has collected stories of elder abuse in which city services have been able to intervene and help. One case involved an 80-year-old man living on the Upper West Side who met a 46-year-old woman at a ballroom dancing class and befriended her. When his friend said she needed $38,000 to get her harassing landlord off her back, he willingly loaned it to her, then allowed her to move in when she lost her apartment anyway. Within months, this former friend became a threatening roommate who refused to pay back the loan and routinely threatened to kill her victim.

“Over 30 percent of elder abuse cases are perpetrated by family members and friends,” said City Council Member Jessica Lappin, who chairs the Council Committee on Aging. “It’s important for people to know that there are support services out there for them. If they are being exploited, they should feel comfortable about speaking up.” The scams that target older people are often complex and well-oiled. Mortgage scams or deed thefts, in which people trick seniors who are homeowners into signing away their savings or their property, are common. Donna Dougherty, the attorney in charge of legal services at Jewish Association Serving the Aging, said seniors who have their lives, finances and wits
about them can still get taken by these types of scams.

“I’ve had people who have lost their entire savings and whatnot, and they were professional people. I had someone who had worked at the Federal Reserve and got taken by a mortgage scam. It was terribly embarrassing to her; she was brilliant with finances,” said Dougherty. “You have to understand that it’s a crime. They really are looking to give you false information and mislead you; it has nothing to do with intelligence.”

While those crimes usually require a personal connection to the victim, some criminals chose their targets at random, anonymously. “There are scams going on when a [person pretending to be a] grandchild who lost a wallet calls and needs a ticket home,” said Bobbie Sackman, director of public policy at CSC. “They’re preying on people’s fears that they’re alone. Some people might not have their full cognitive abilities, so they just prey on these older folks to get whatever it is they want to get. That’s a common one, when they call from another place.”

Police reports confirm the trend. Officer Ross Dichter, crime analyst for the Upper West Side’s 20th Precinct, said that identity theft and online scams are some of the fastest growing crimes, and he routinely comes across reports targeting elderly victims. “Someone approaches an older person on the street, they say, ‘Hey I found this envelope with $50,000 in it, go get me $5,000 and we’ll split this between the two of us, no one has to know,’” Dichter explained, describing a scheme he said happens all the time. The victim goes to the bank, takes out thousands of dollars in cash and hands
it over. The swindler gives up their “share” and quickly disappears, leaving the elderly
person with an envelope stuffed with tissue paper and out five grand.

Another common scam is through Craigslist, when a scammer answers an ad posted by an older person advertising a service like babysitting. The swindler corresponds and agrees to pay the person in advance, then sends a check for far too much money. The scammer then claims it was a mistake and asks the person to mail back the difference in cash; meanwhile, the check bounces and they become unreachable.

Some schemes that target elderly victims aren’t necessarily criminal but fall into the category of consumer fraud. Council Member Gale Brewer said that her older constituents are bombarded by mailings soliciting information from them and that they often get confused about what is legitimate and what’s not. She has also heard of scams that collect low monthly payments in exchange for supposed ownership of land or property, which turns out to be for nothing—send in $10 a month and get a piece of land in Florida, for instance—that operate just this side of legally through complicated fine print disclaimers. “They can make $80 million a week off of these scams. They’re not small operations,” Brewer said. “They have the best attorneys in the U.S. and they usually stay just above the law. They only prey on the elderly. You can’t quite believe that people
would actually do these things but they do.”

Advocates say there are ways for seniors to protect themselves and for loved ones to be on the lookout for signs of financial exploitation. The DA’s office has worked to educate major banks to be aware of unusual transactions in their older clients’ accounts, and anyone helping an elderly relative should be alert for changes in spending or strange bills
being delivered. Dougherty cautions that anyone who tries to isolate elderly people and not allow them to seek outside advice should not be trusted. “Seniors, like everybody else, need to be vigilant without necessarily being fearful,” Vance said. “Being vigilant may be something as simple as checking your credit card statement, checking your bank statements. When someone calls you on the phone and it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

In Christopher McCormack’s 21 years in the police department, he has spent time on the streets of Washington Heights and East Harlem. He most recently led a squad of more than 150 rookies at Patrol Borough Manhattan North, targeting high-crime spots north of 59th Street. In his native Bronx, McCormack was a homicide detective and a sergeant at a downtown precinct. Now, he is taking the helm at the 20th Precinct, covering the Upper West Side from West 59th to 86th streets, between Central Park and the Hudson River.

Though he has investigated narcotics and murder cases earlier in his career, McCormack, a captain, will now focus on reaching out to a community that demands a high quality of life.

“Community relations are the most important thing,” McCormack said. “I want to hear good, positive things about the neighborhood and quality of life crimes.”

But to crack down on these minor offenses, McCormack said he needs the community’s help.

“We need to have the public involved in crime fighting,” he said.

Christopher McCormack, new head of the 20th Precinct, says he wants to get the public involved in fighting crime. Photo by Dan Rivoli.

At precinct council meetings, he will be hearing more complaints about bicyclists riding on the sidewalk and unattended laptops disappearing, rather than corner drug dealing or mugging hot spots.

“He strikes me as a real go-getter and somebody that was probably expecting a much higher-crime precinct, but he’ll bring his expectation to our quality of life situation here,” said Sam Katz, head of the 20th Precinct Community Council, who has met with the new commanding officer. “When people come and complain, it’s, ‘You’re not enforcing enough, not giving out enough summonses.’”

But crime does happen on the Upper West Side.

In December 2009, a triple homicide over drugs occurred at 492 Amsterdam Ave. between West 83rd and 84th streets. There are also numerous bank robberies, sexual assaults and muggings every once in a while. McCormack says he has the experience to tackle more serious crimes.

“I have an investigative background,” he said. “When things are going bad, I reach back to that.”

The commanding officer will also be responsible for the precinct’s major destinations, such as Central Park, the Museum of Natural History and Lincoln Center.

“We have high-profile facilities,” Katz said. “People are put here [in charge of the 20th Precinct] because they’re really accomplished.”

McCormack is taking over from Deputy Inspector Keith Spadaro, who headed the precinct for four years. Spadaro became executive officer of the communications division after Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announced a shake-up of the NYPD that shifted 40 people to new posts, the Daily News reported May 2.

The promotion is only one major change in McCormack’s life. He is moving with his wife and daughter to Westchester County after living in the Bronx for 37 years. Now, 21 years since he joined the police academy, the 41-year-old commanding officer is looking to start a master’s program in police management at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

“I have a lot of street experience,” McCormack said. “Learning management in this administrative spot will help me be an all-around effective leader here.”