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Newark Fire Chief Michael Colacino is angry over what he calls “a reign of terror” through his community by a group vandals on spree of mischief that caused thousands of dollars in damage.
Colacino was just one of the many victims in the three-day stint. His fire vehicle, parked at Mike Barnard Chevrolet Cadillac Buick GMC on Route 31 in the west end of the village, had all four tires slashed. Damage that cost nearly $1,000 to repair.
“The suspects not only made the emergency vehicle inoperable by puncturing all fire tires while it was parked at a local car dealership for service, but they continued their crime spree by unlawfully entering the Quality Inn motel and intentionally set the fire alarm system off by discharging a fire extinguisher at 4:45 in the morning,” he wrote in a letter thanking police.
Costly junket
Late last week, Newark police charged four Newark youths believed to have caused thousands of dollars in damage from June 20-23 across the village.
Raymond Schaefer, 17, of 110 Myrtle Ave., was charged July 6 with four counts of felony third-degree criminal mischief, third-degree burglary, reckless endangerment, third-degree criminal tampering, petit larceny and fourth-degree criminal mischief. He was arraigned in village court and sent to the Wayne County Jail on $15,000 cash or $30,000 bail bond.
Nicholas Wentworth, 18, of 705 Colton Ave. was also charged July 6 with third-degree burglary, fourth-degree conspiracy, reckless endangerment, third-degree criminal tampering, third-degree criminal mischief and fifth-degree conspiracy. He was arraigned and released to reappear in village court at a later date.
Lamar Slaughter, 19, of 713 Blue Cut Road, was charged July 8 with four counts of third-degree criminal mischief, one count of fourth-degree criminal mischief, three counts of fifth-degree conspiracy, petit larceny, conspiracy and endangering. He was arraigned and released to reappear in village court at a later date.
A 14-year-old, whose name is not being released because of his age, was charged July Friday, July 8 with four counts of felony third-degree criminal mischief, third-degree burglary, reckless endangerment, third-degree criminal tampering, petit larceny and fourth-degree criminal mischief. He was sent to family court for processing.
Newark Police Inv. Gary Verstraete said the police department started getting calls on June 21 for complaints of vandalism throughout the village. In their investigation, police discovered the first place hit was Best Buy on East Union Street, where three different vehicles were found with slashed tires, amounting to over $1,250 in damage. Then, an East Union Street resident found his tires slashed, too, adding another $425 to the tally. Third on the list of places was Rent-A-Center in the Arcadia Shopping Center on Route 31. Management there discovered slashed tires on a delivery truck which cost $240. Tire slashing turned into petit larceny, Verstraete said, when bike parts, T-shirts, pants and sneakers totaling $170 were taken from the Newark Walmart on Route 31. The suspects were captured on surveillance camera, he said, which aided in their apprehension.
Newark Fire Chief Michael Colacino is angry over what he calls “a reign of terror” through his community by a group vandals on spree of mischief that caused thousands of dollars in damage.
Colacino was just one of the many victims in the three-day stint. His fire vehicle, parked at Mike Barnard Chevrolet Cadillac Buick GMC on Route 31 in the west end of the village, had all four tires slashed. Damage that cost nearly $1,000 to repair.
“The suspects not only made the emergency vehicle inoperable by puncturing all fire tires while it was parked at a local car dealership for service, but they continued their crime spree by unlawfully entering the Quality Inn motel and intentionally set the fire alarm system off by discharging a fire extinguisher at 4:45 in the morning,” he wrote in a letter thanking police.
Costly junket
Late last week, Newark police charged four Newark youths believed to have caused thousands of dollars in damage from June 20-23 across the village.
Raymond Schaefer, 17, of 110 Myrtle Ave., was charged July 6 with four counts of felony third-degree criminal mischief, third-degree burglary, reckless endangerment, third-degree criminal tampering, petit larceny and fourth-degree criminal mischief. He was arraigned in village court and sent to the Wayne County Jail on $15,000 cash or $30,000 bail bond.
Nicholas Wentworth, 18, of 705 Colton Ave. was also charged July 6 with third-degree burglary, fourth-degree conspiracy, reckless endangerment, third-degree criminal tampering, third-degree criminal mischief and fifth-degree conspiracy. He was arraigned and released to reappear in village court at a later date.
Lamar Slaughter, 19, of 713 Blue Cut Road, was charged July 8 with four counts of third-degree criminal mischief, one count of fourth-degree criminal mischief, three counts of fifth-degree conspiracy, petit larceny, conspiracy and endangering. He was arraigned and released to reappear in village court at a later date.
A 14-year-old, whose name is not being released because of his age, was charged July Friday, July 8 with four counts of felony third-degree criminal mischief, third-degree burglary, reckless endangerment, third-degree criminal tampering, petit larceny and fourth-degree criminal mischief. He was sent to family court for processing.
Newark Police Inv. Gary Verstraete said the police department started getting calls on June 21 for complaints of vandalism throughout the village. In their investigation, police discovered the first place hit was Best Buy on East Union Street, where three different vehicles were found with slashed tires, amounting to over $1,250 in damage. Then, an East Union Street resident found his tires slashed, too, adding another $425 to the tally. Third on the list of places was Rent-A-Center in the Arcadia Shopping Center on Route 31. Management there discovered slashed tires on a delivery truck which cost $240. Tire slashing turned into petit larceny, Verstraete said, when bike parts, T-shirts, pants and sneakers totaling $170 were taken from the Newark Walmart on Route 31. The suspects were captured on surveillance camera, he said, which aided in their apprehension.
The spree didn’t end there. The next stop was Mike Barnard Chevrolet Cadillac Buick GMC, where the tires of the fire chief’s vehicle, a $850 repair, were slashed. Next up was the Quality Inn on North Main Street. Verstraete said one of the suspects asked the person at the desk to use the restroom just after 4 a.m. Once inside, he allegedly went to a side door and let his friends in. The youths ran though the building and sent off a fire extinguisher that caused the evacuation of the hotel.
Verstraete said the final place hit was the Park Presbyterian Church on Maple Court. The youths, he said, used plant metal hangers to break a winter, causing about $740 in damage.
Now in the hands of the Wayne County District Attorney Rick Healy’s office, Healy said additional charges levied pending the outcome of a grand jury proceeding. If convicted of the most serious charges, all but the youthful offender could see up to four years in state prison. The juvenile, Healy said, could be placed on probation, or placed in a division for youth.
“There are pretty serious allegations — setting off a fire alarm at 4 a.m. and emptying a hotel filled with people sleeping, that’s pretty serious,” the DA said.
Colacino agrees.
“(They)... subjected every volunteer firefighter to potential injury while responding to a false fire alarm,” he said. “Thirteen firefighters from Newark and more from the village of Lyons were awoken at 4:45 a.m. and responded. We didn’t know what chemical we were dealing with for quite some time. We were fortunate this was a false alarm and that our volunteers weren’t needed for a real emergency elsewhere.”
Summertime upswing
Although this is an extreme case, both the district Attorney’s office and Newark police say that in the summer, they see an upswing in criminal mischief cases by youth.
“Vandalism is a big one,” said Healy. “There are also more assaults in the summer and more alcohol use in the summertime. The rest of the crimes have no particular season.”
Verstraete said his numbers show youth-related crime nearly doubles in the summer.
“We’ve actually changed the hours on patrols to accommodate that,” he said.
In January, 49 youth-related complaints were logged at the department. February, March and April were 30, 49 and 51, respectively. That number jumped to 91 in May. He’d been so busy fielding calls, Verstraete said, that the numbers for June had not yet been tallied — but he knows it is well over 100.
Most of the time, he said, the complaints are minor — loitering, playing basketball in the street and groups of kids on bikes hindering traffic. Most, he said, don’t raise to the level of felony crimes.
The change in patrol times, helps, he said, but parental cooperation would be even better.
“It would be great if parents could have their kids in at a decent hour of the night and not getting jammed up in illegal activities,” Verstraete said. “A lot of parents don’t even know where their kids are at night. Be a parent, not a friend. Know who you your kids are hanging out with.”
Other options
Police in Palmyra, Macedon and Lyons say they, too, get some vandalism and criminal mischief, but not to the extent of the incident in Newark, and it’s not just limited to the summer months.
Sgt. Jim Showman said that in Palmyra, youth-related crimes ebb and flow throughout the year. Their biggest problem is finding out who is the central cause of it.
An 11-year-old was recently charged with minor damage to the restroom facility at the Port of Palmyra, which is monitored by surveillance cameras. After news of that incident got around, kids stopped handing there, he said.
He thinks part of the difference between the number of complaints in his village and Newark is the size of the community. Newark has about 10,000 people, while Palmyra is around 3,500. Their department, he said, makes about 150 to 250 arrests of all types in any given year.
“We’re a smaller village,” Showman said. “We’re close to everyone. They know where we’re going to be around.”
And, he added, there’s only so many places kids can hang out — Prospect Hill, the marina, Aqueduct Park and some have even tried to get into the fairgrounds.
“It’s easier for us to be in the right place at the right time,” he said.
Another tool is the village’s curfew. Put into place in 2008, Showman said the department can go a couple of months at a time without a call. The curfew states that youth under the age of 18 can’t be out without a parent or guardian after 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and after 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. The first time, Showman said, kids are let off with a warning. After that, kids from 16 to 18 and parents of kids under 16 can be arrested.
“That doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of kids out after curfew,” he said. “We’re just not catching them.”
The calls they get are mostly for items like broken solar lights in yards, kids screaming or running about and one time, some youth got into the fairgrounds and went joy riding on golf carts.
Although it’s not called a curfew, the village of Lyons also has an ordinance that places makes parents accountable for their kids’ actions.
“In Lyons we have the Parent Responsibility Law,” said Interim Police Chief Richard Bogan. “Although it’s complicated to enforce it raises the level of responsibility to the parents.”
There’s also a nuisance law that can be applied to youth that makes parents responsible.
Since the arrest of a couple of youths who went of a spray-paint graffiti spree two years ago and the implementation of Parent Responsibility law, there has been very little reporting of criminal mischief.
Macedon Police chief John Colella said that the same is true in his town.
“Our community is somewhat spread out,” he said. “We don’t have a central location where kids hang out, which in their down-time can contribute to their criminal mischief.”
Setting examples
Whether it’s through curfews, accountability or punishment under the law, all agree that parental involvement and setting examples publicly are big deterrents when it comes to youth-related incidents.
“If the law would permit, on top of a lengthy jail sentence for the tens of thousands of dollars (these people) caused over a few weeks in our village, they should be made to perform hundreds of hours of community service cleaning the streets of Newark by hand on top of washing and waxing all of Newark's fire equipment,” Colacino wrote.
Showman said their curfew stands as their example.
“They test the waters the waters when we began the curfew,” he said. “They tested them again when Rochester had theirs thrown out the following year. The curfew works. We hardly have any issues now.”
An example may also be set in the most recent incident in Newark. Healy said the case will be prosecuted at the felony level.
“There’s significant damage and many victims — this was serious.”
