Police Chief Advises Residents to Secure their Homes and Cars Against Criminal Activity

Scarsdale Police Chief Andrew Matturo gave the following update at the April 25th meeting of the Scarsdale Board of Trustees on police response to the burglary of an occupied home on Berkwick Road and the theft of two cars last week. He also told residents what they could do to secure their homes and property.

Here are his remarks:
Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight to update you on the progress of the recent burglary on Berwick Road as well as sharing what the police department is doing to address property crime and crime prevention throughout the Village.

With regard to Berwick Road our detectives have gathered evidence from the scene and have been analyzing it. They have been working nonstop with Investigators from the Westchester County District Attorney's Office, to obtain additional information. We are canvasing for video from private residences as well as commercial locations, which will also be analyzed.

Information that we have received through our investigation does not indicate that this residence was specifically targeted, prior to the incident. I can also report that we have recovered a vehicle which was stolen the week of the 4/17 from the Scarsdale Meadows area. That vehicle is also being processed for evidence. Our goal is to conduct a thorough investigation and to apprehend the individuals responsible. Although I can't elaborate further at this time I am very encouraged by the progress and direction of these investigations.

To date, we have experience 6 burglaries Village wide, 2 in Scarsdale Meadows, 1 in West Quaker Ridge, 2 in Drake Edgewood and 1 in Fox Meadow. During the same time period in 2016 we had experienced 16 burglaries Village wide. I attribute the reduction to several factors.

One is the deployment of additional patrols in areas with patterns of increased criminal activity since January our officers logged over 2,000 hours of burglary patrol. Another is aggressive patrol that yielded useful information and intelligence that directly led to the arrests of individuals responsible for property crimes throughout the village and by continuously working with other police agencies and the Westchester County Intelligence center. A key component was an increase in the number of calls we received from residents reporting suspicious behavior.

In February of this year we arrested 3 individuals who were responsible for 2 burglaries in Drake Edgewood and 1 burglary in Secor Farms we are continuing investigating past burglaries and believe we may be able to connect these individuals to several more burglaries that occurred in 2016. We also arrested 3 individuals in February who were responsible for larcenies that occurred in Greenacres.

When I briefed the Board last, I had mentioned the decline in property crime over the years and although it does little to comfort those who have been victims recently, it does give us some perspective that our efforts do have an impact on preventing criminal acts and property crime. Our deployment of personnel coupled with our use of technology has benefited us in preventing crime and in making arrests. We have had our covert camera along with another convert camera deployed in the Fox Meadow area for several months. Unfortunately these cameras have not been as effective as our mobile license plate readers (LPR's). The Department utilizes 2 LPR's in affected areas throughout the village on each tour of duty 24 hours a day. Since January of this year our LPR's picked up 466,498 license plate reads. The Village recognizes the benefit of the LPR and authorized the purchase of the second unit last year. Each unit costs approximately 19,000.00 and we are exploring the possibility of acquiring additional units through grants whether available at the federal, state or county level.

To emphasize what the Mayor has said, although it is impossible to stop all crime from occurring, we can prevent a great deal of it from happening through a combination of proactive police patrols, Citizen Involvement, by reporting activity and by residents protecting themselves by activating their alarms, utilizing strong locks on doors and windows and implementing proven crime prevention techniques. Residents can find more of these recommendations on the Village's web site in the Police Section under "Crime Information." In 2016 of those residences with alarms 62% were not on at the time of the break in. And in 2017 91% of the vehicles that were entered in the village were unlocked.

Recently, while on patrol overnight, our officers have been making contact with residents to let them know that their garage doors are open and in some cases the door to the interior of the home has been unlocked and cars that are in the open garages are unlocked and have their keys in them.

We have to use this opportunity to get the message out to our residents that we need to work together in keeping Scarsdale safe. I am making our officers available to meet with various neighborhood associations to speak about what is happening in their particular area and to discuss ways that residents can help the department.