December 19, 2014

By Phoebe Temkin 

 At the age of 48, Marie McSweeney had already come up against the sometimes unfair randomness which characterizes life. She was a breast cancer survivor, with only two years distancing her from a very real brush with untimely death. But McSweeney had survived. She had survived and had continued daily life, even sticking to some of the same traditions. Every Sunday, McSweeney drove her 87 year-old mother to church, and then shopping afterwards. It was in the midst of this idyllic tradition that chance would one day intervene once again in the life of Marie McSweeney. This time, she wouldn't be so lucky.

This particular day was April 24th, 2004, and chance came in the form of a 10 lb piece of asphalt. While it is true that on its own, this piece of asphalt was nothing more than that, it was McSweeney's timing that would imbue this object with all the unfair randomness of life. As the boulder tumbled from the Kimball Avenue overpass, McSweeney sped along the Sprain Brook Parkway, coming directly into its path. Car met boulder, with the boulder crashing through McSweeney's windowshield, completely crushing the left side of her face. With her mother sitting helpless in the seat next to her, unharmed, McSweeney lost control of her car which rolled off the road before coming to a rest against a tree.

McSweeney did not die right away, but her fate was sealed as soon as whatever force was at work had brought her car together with that falling boulder. Call it an aligning of the planets for all the wrong reasons, but McSweeney never stood a chance against it. Pictures of her car show broken glass everywhere with blood spattered all over the driver's window and seat. There was practically nothing left of McSweeney's left side; her brain showed through where her forehead and temple used to be. She died shortly after being taken to hospital.

McSweeney's death was the ultimate bolt from the blue. Certainly she could never have anticipated this happening—indeed, no one could. But this is not to say that the asphalt ended up where it was in a completely random way. It had obviously been pushed, or thrown, from the overpass. Human intervention, not just the cruelness of fate, had killed Marie McSweeney. The death was ruled a homicide, and an investigation began.

In the police reports of McSweeney's death, a certain phrase emerges more than once. “The source of the boulder is unknown”; “No one in custody yet.” For all the chaos on the Sprain Brook Parkway, someone had slipped away far above on the overpass. Police would find later that the perpetrator had run from Kimball Avenue and into the nearby Sarah Lawrence College campus. There, he blended in. He escaped. And with no leads, Marie McSweeney's case eventually went cold.

Maria Ramos was not killed by the purely coincidental collision of car with falling object. But this is not to make her death any less random. Ramos, like McSweeney, was in the wrong place at the wrong time—she simply met the wrong man. He happened to be a serial rapist and murderer. A witness who was the last one to see one of his victims alive would say later that this man walked with an attitude, like he was looking for a fight.

On February 5th, 1989, Ramos' naked body was found lying in a light dusting of snow on the pavement. Her front tooth had been knocked out and her mouth had filled with blood. In fact there was blood everywhere. She had been stabbed multiple times. Her hands were bound behind her back with black panty hose, and a rape kit would reveal semen in her vagina and anus. Her blood-stained dress had been tossed aside along with empty bottles and beer cans. She was wearing metallic coppery nail polish. Her rings were still on.

Just like with McSweeney's case, the killer probably felt like he'd gotten the best of chance—after all, he had gotten away with it. By the time cops arrived at the scene he was long gone. Semen recovered at the scene revealed his DNA, but there was no match in the database. The killer walked free, and would kill again. In both cases, it would be years until anyone was apprehended for the crimes, and it would be Detective John Geiss who was tasked with a crucial part of catching a cold case perpetrator: remembering the victims and the case itself.

In any city, there will be crime and misfortune. It will be as random as falling rocks, and as horrifying as a woman's body being tossed onto a sidewalk to be discovered. But Yonkers is in many ways a city worth looking at on its own. The fourth largest city in New York State, it is consistently overshadowed by nearby New York City, gaining it the nickname the “forgotten borough,” or as current mayor Mike Spano puts it a little less delicately, “a pimple on the butt of an elephant.” Yonkers has always been a city of immigrants, first from Europe and in more recent years from the Caribbean and Central America. From the 1980s alone, the Hispanic population in Yonkers has gone up by 100%. It is a city with a constantly changing face, as well as a tumultuous history. The housing segregation case of the 80s put Yonkers on the map, with the Federal government finding the city guilty of having intentionally segregating public housing and public schools across racial lines. The Mayor who had been in the center of the deep public unrest caused by the case, Nicholas Wasicsko, ended up shooting himself in the head over his father's grave. Spano reduces Yonkers' political history to “drama” and crisis after crisis.

Southwest Yonkers, where the poor black population was quartered off prior the desegregation case, is still suffering the effects of racial segregation. 50% of the working-age population is unemployed, with 29% of the population itself living below the poverty line. When probed about crime, Spano is reluctant to talk. “Statistically we have less crime than other cities our size,” he says. “We have a good police department. We are a relatively safe city.” But even Spano will admit to various 'hotspots' around the city: “That being said there are places in Yonkers where crime is obviously higher. Especially in areas where you have high unemployment.” Undoubtedly these hotspots are located in the historically poor and oppressed Southwest Yonkers areas. Spano indicates that a heavy police presence is used to cull crime in these areas, saying “90% of the police activity is in these hotspots. That's where they are.” Although it's unclear to whom this ambiguous 'they' is referring to, certainly a large police presence can't help relations between the City and its residents. Voting turn out is abysmally low in Southwest Yonkers.

And in the midst of this, the City is also beginning to make changes—for whom, it is debatable. Spano argues that the orders imposed by the Federal government on Yonkers blocked redevelopment in the 80s and beyond. “If there was no problem with the federal government, or if the council had taken a different approach to that problem [the segregation case], we'd be a very different city today. We'd probably be a very wealthy city that is sitting on the top of the world.” Whether or not this is true, and without accounting for the variety of racial issues that were tackled in the segregation case, Spano has now made it his mission to make what never happened a reality. Just blocks away from Getty Square, located in the heart of downtown Southwest Yonkers, is a valuable waterfront area overlooking the Hudson River. Luxury apartments are springing up, with the hope of drawing hip commuters into Yonkers. A brand new park has been put into place, centered around the daylighting of the Saw Mill River (bringing a river formerly trapped under concrete to light). The park is beautiful, but complaints of the homeless sleeping on benches are rampant.

Yonkers is tough and hardened, a shapeshifter accommodating many types of people all packed in together. In the words of Spano, it is held together “with chewing gum and bandaids.” In this tenuous and ever-changing place, we can understand how it can be easy to disappear. Cases with no witnesses, no one willing to come forward and a lack of physical evidence can quickly go cold. This means that essentially the investigation has nothing more to go on. These so-called cold cases are shelved, waiting patiently for some new break to come through. Often this is as random as why the homicide occurred in the first place. And it turns out that the human intervention which killed McSweeney is also one of the most important components to solving a murder.

In Yonkers, John Geiss is not only the Cold Case Squad's leading detective: he is the Cold Case Squad. John Geiss has been a part of the Cold Case Squad of Yonkers for 19 years. When he arrived, it was comprised of two other detectives. Now they've been promoted, but Geiss remains as the sole man on the frontline of cold cases. “If they took me out,” he says, “I'd retire tomorrow.” His office, located in the bowels of the Yonkers Police Department, is a crowded space. Two bookcases are completely filled with case files. There are more on almost every available surface; the space underneath his desk is crammed full of boxes upon boxes of files. Pictures are tacked up here and there on the walls: mugshots, crime scene photos, missing persons ads. A whiteboard is filled with names, addresses, causes of death. There are 59 current cold cases in Yonkers, with clues to each all over the small space.

Geiss answers without hesitation when asked why his job exists. “Biggest thing why cases go cold is because people do not want to cooperate. They just clam up.” Cases with no witnesses also sometimes become unsolvable. Humans are integral to solving crime, and without them, or their information, cases can quickly go cold, sometimes for decades.

No one was cooperating in Marie McSweeney's case, or in Maria Ramos'. Even if they had, humans are not infallible. Geiss tells the strange story of a man who is trying to get himself convicted of a murder. The catch is that he didn't commit it. All the details the man has given—down to what weapon was used—don't match up with the case files. “But,” Geiss explains,” he wants to get transferred up to New York. He's doing life in Florida and that's hard time in 118 degree heat.” When Geiss refused to charge the man, he took the case to the FBI. “They came to the same conclusion as I did: he didn't—couldn't—have done it.” Geiss laughs, presumably at the ridiculousness of human nature.

The case files are the summaries of ongoing investigations as well as cases that have been solved. Summary should really be taken with a grain of salt—each binder is huge, containing everything from police report after police report to postings from perpetrators' Facebook walls. The effort Geiss puts into his investigations is tangible in the sheer amount of stuff he has amassed. When asked how often he's actually in his office, he answers immediately: “Rarely.” He's usually on the road instead, tracking people down. He's planning a trip down to Georgia to interview people for three different cases. But the work he puts in never feels like a waste to Geiss. He talks about the drive he felt to solve Maria McSweeney's case. “Driving with her mom, breast cancer survivor—it's kinda sad.” He pauses for a moment. “But they're all sad.”

This is the attitude that seems to permeate Geiss' work. While McSweeney's life may be in stark contrast to that of the prostitutes who struggled with drugs, Geiss makes no differentiation. “It's very important that the victim's family has someone to speak for them,” he explains. “At least they know we didn't forget.”

It would appear that a large part of cold cases is remembering the forgotten. Dr. James Adcock is a jack of all trades when it comes to cold cases. He's been involved in active cold case investigation for 16 years in addition to being a university professor and a member of a homicide evaluation non-profit. He was also the Chief Deputy Coroner of Investigations for Richland County, South Carolina. He is currently one half of the Center for the Resolution of Unresolved Crime, or CRUC, which provides death investigation analysis for both ongoing (hot) and cold cases. He emphasizes how the majority of cold cases belong to forgotten victims. “Sad to say [some cases] do not always get the attention the should receive,” he explains. “Devalued victims like prostitutes and homeless just do not get the same attention if the victim was from the middle class.”

Dr. Jason Williams, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, offers further insight into what victims may be forgotten by society. He focuses on the intersections of race and criminology, and states firmly that “Lots of research as confirmed that the U.S. continues to be a nation that does not value Black life.” He points to death penalty data in addition to cold cases and missing persons cases, as well as historical devaluation of black bodies. “Those who are marginalized have long had to settle for the short end of the stick when it comes to American justice,” he explains. “We often learn from history why things are the way they are today.” Dr. Williams notes how racial bias can be seen particularly in media coverage of missing persons cases as well as how the government pursues these. Essentially, race matters just as much as class and job occupation when it comes to whether or not a victim will be remembered and their case fought for. Dr. Adcock also emphasizes the problems that arise when victims do not have families to keep asking questions and ensuring their loved one's case is not forgotten.

For some victims, Geiss becomes that family—or at least becomes very close with them. For him, it's impossible not to get personally involved with the cases he's working on. “You become part of the family. You see the hurt involved. Just like I gave you my cellphone number, I give it to them and they can call me any time. Most do, sometimes just to vent. It's hard, you know, they've lost a loved one.” Not only is there the feeling of loss, but also of uncertainty. Geiss is careful not to presume what he does might offer closure, only an end to this uncertainty. “It won't bring back a loved one, but the family gets answers, and a kind of justice.”

Just two years after Maria Ramos' death, another injustice would occur—only 820 feet away from where Ramos herself had been found. Tawanda Hodges was, like Ramos, a prostitute with a probable drug habit. She was also, like Ramos, a young mother. Hodges was found exactly the same way Ramos was. She was stripped naked, her hands tied behind her back with her bra and underwear, and there was semen in her vagina and anus. She had been strangled. Pictures of the crime scene show how her body had been left just as Ramos' had, in an open area, as if begging to be found. Like Ramos's photos, they are hard to look at.

Hodges' body was found in March of 1991. Five years later, Kimberly Moore was found in a motel room, dead. Her dress had been pulled up, exposing her naked torso. She had been strangled, and there was a large cut running across her forehead. Blood stained the mattress. Her hands had been knotted together with a telephone cord. The semen they found in her vagina and anus matched that which had been found inside both Maria Ramos and Tawanda Hodges. All three women were linked in death. All three had clearly suffered at the hands of the same man—but who was he?

Oscar Gonzalez was working as a motel clerk at the motel where Moore was murdered. He would be the only one who could testify to seeing one of the victims with the murderer. Moore had rented a room earlier that day to provide oral sex to a client. Later, she returned to the desk to rent the room for longer. Gonzalez was the last person to see Moore alive, and saw the man who entered the room with her. He described him as white and in his mid to late twenties, with short curly hair and a swaggering walk. The pair entered room 45. A maid would eventually knock on the door; hearing no response, she would then enter to find Moore's body lying on the bed.

Even with this information, tracking down the man Gonzalez saw proved to be an impossible task. His DNA may have been on record, but there was no catching the man who had murdered the three women. Perhaps it was some kind of twisted luck on his part. In any case, after Kimberly Moore's body was found the murders stopped. For the next 15 years, the killer's luck held. It would only be the random intervention of the universe that put him behind bars.

Geiss sits at one of two computers in his office, checking criminal record databases, usually looking for witnesses more than perpetrators. “Trying to locate witnesses is a task,” he says, sighing. “No one is going to stay in Yonkers more than five, ten years. People move away, or die.” What about police error? “Everybody has a bad day.” It is becoming clear that his job deals in the realm of the random and coincidental. Once he gets a lead, things quickly start falling into place. “I don't end the case until a conviction,” he says, speaking of the incredible amount of information he gathers for a case. But for the information to be collected, something has to fall into his lap. As Dr. Adcock bluntly puts it, “If there are no witnesses and no evidence, then one would not investigate the case.” But Geiss is committed to his cases, refusing to let their memories die even when no investigative leads remain. When asked what he can do if there are no witnesses and no physical leads on a case, Geiss pulls out an advertisement that was placed in the New York Times. It is appealing for any information on a crime committed in 2007. A 78 year woman, Louise Paciarello, was found as a result of a fire started in her senior citizen complex apartment. When it was ruled that her death was not caused by the fire, her case became a homicide. Geiss explains how with no witnesses and with any physical evidence destroyed by the fire, an ad like the one in the Times is really his only hope. Another method is even more interesting. When he was down in Florida, Geiss learned of a cold case department that printed cold case names, pictures, and other information onto playing cards. The decks were then distributed to jails. Now the Westchester County prisoners are supplied with similar decks. The hope is that one day, that the right inmate will pick up the right card. Sometimes, all Geiss can do is wait. He admits there is a difference between his investigations and those that are ongoing. “I have all the time in the world,” he says.

Both McSweeney's case and that of Ramos, Hodges, and Moore required just that: waiting. Patience. As John Geiss puts it, someone to remember them. The first killer to be caught was the serial rapist murderer of the three women.

On January 26th, Francisco Acevedo, also known as Frank, was arrested for DWI. He was asked for a DNA swab. Thinking it would get him out of jail quicker, Acevedo accepted and gave a sample of his DNA. Finally, it was the match that Geiss had been waiting for. DNA evidence had been collected not only from the semen found at the crime scene, but also from cigarette butts the killer had tossed aside (always Newports). Both matched the swab Acevedo gave in jail.

Perhaps it was fitting that Acevedo's interview with John Geiss was on Friday the 13th. After all, the luck of a man who'd gotten away with murder for 22 years had finally run out. Acevedo admitted to drinking, smoking crack, and having sex with “crack whores.” He claimed he never used a condom, and regularly used crack houses and motels in the Bronx. Although Acevedo insisted that although he was in the motel where Kimberly Moore was found, he did not kill her, the DNA evidence meant that he was arrested and charged. 22 years later, justice was finally going to be served.

Geiss had to tell Acevedo's wife, Lizette Santiago, what had happened to her husband. She remained in denial, refusing to believe she was a victim (Acevedo had assaulted her and broken her nose at one point), and that people where innocent until proven guilty. She stated that Acevedo had had a drug problem but that he had met God; that people could change; she didn't know him back then. Geiss is visibly troubled when he talks about this interview. “He was a psychopath who has a big problem with women,” he says somberly. He explains how Acevedo had been arrested for rape prior to the murders. In 1986, Dolores Rector was attacked by Acevedo. She was dragged into the woods, stripped naked with her hands bound behind her back, and raped. Acevedo punched her in the face and about the head, and choked her. He complained about Rector's hair, which was blonde, saying it reminded him of his girlfriend who was having a baby he was sure wasn't his. Rector only got away when Acevedo passed out. At Acevedo's trial, she picked his picture out of an array of others. “I'll never forget him,” she said. “I thought I was going to die.”

Rector wasn't the only woman Acevedo terrorized before he began murdering women. Jennifer Hernandez dated Acevedo when she was only 15 years old. He used to lock her in a room and wouldn't let her leave, coming in to beat her and rape her at intervals. He also urinated on her. Hernandez became pregnant by Acevedo, and was only able to get away from him when he went to jail for the rape of Dolores Rector.

Geiss speculates that after serving time, Acevedo decided “he wasn't going to let them live.”

In addition to the three women whose murders he was charged with, Acevedo is also suspected to have murdered two others: one found in 1994, the other in 2008. Maria Matthews was found in Bedford Park with her hands tied behind her back with her bra. She had been strangled with her shoe lace and her pants were pulled down. A female jogger was found in an Orange County, Florida park naked from the wait down with her hands also bound behind her. Acevedo had a construction job less than half a mile from that particular crime scene.

On October 12th, 2011, Frank Acevedo was finally brought to trial. It took less than a month for a jury to find him guilty of all three homicides; in January of 2012, he was sentenced to 75 years to life in jail. He appealed the case, and lost. For Geiss, it was the end of a very long investigation. When talking about why he enjoys his work, he clarifies that for him, it's “not the chase” that is rewarding. It's only the answers. And really, there is no chase. If there is, it can only begin after a stroke of luck sets Geiss on the trail of a perpetrator. If Francisco Acevedo had used a condom, perhaps he never would have been caught.

Marie McSweeney's case would come to a close not by a random DNA match, but by the all-important human intervention. One of the people who had been present on Kimball Avenue when the asphalt was thrown off the overpass came forward to police. Geiss says that sometimes, people are more willing to talk as time goes on. People stop being afraid, relationships change. Maybe, people even feel guilty. So would it be that McSweeney's killer would be apprehended as a result of one of his former friends turning him into the police, nine years after the fact. On a cold snowy day in February, Geiss and an assistant showed up at the house of Alberto Plasencia. Geiss knew it was Plasencia who had pushed the asphalt off the overpass, and as he chatted with the man outside his home, Plasencia became more and more nervous. Eventually, he was brought into the station and formally interviewed, where Geiss' assistant explained to Plasencia that Geiss knew what had happened on that Sunday in 2004. All that remained was to know why—and whether it was intentional or not.

At the time of the murder, Plasencia was only 17 years old. When he was allowed to call his mother in the interview room, he told her that he had been arrested in Yonkers. After a pause, he hissed “For that thing.” Now 26 years old, Plasencia was charged with second degree murder. Initially, he denied his guilt. He texted his girlfriend, named Fuzzy in his phone, “I love you. I don't know when I'll be able to see you again. I'm being charged with murder two. I didn't do it.” He ended the text with kissy faces.

Eventually however, Plasencia pled guilty in order to be charged with manslaughter, which carried a significantly lower sentence. Geiss was pleased with this outcome: “It's what he would have been charged with at the time. It just came too late.” He was especially happy with how the trial itself went. In court, Plasencia admitted his guilt and apologized to Marie McSweeney's family. “It's the best for the family,” Geiss says, “to see him say 'I did it and this is what I did.'” He continues, “These families have been waiting a lot longer than other people.”

For both of these closed cases, however, there are dozens of unsolved ones that sit on Geiss' shelf. There is the aforementioned Louise Paciarello, found dead in her burned down apartment, Laurie McKissinck, a 17 year old runaway whose body was found in the woods in 1999, and David Keels, a 60 year old father of three who was shot and killed in 1997. Then there's one of the devalued victims Dr. Adcock spoke of, a homeless woman called Ivy. Ivy disappeared, and rumors began to swirl that she had been murdered, perhaps even in the bathroom at Yonkers Railroad Station. In the first week after Ivy was reported missing, divers combed the Saw Mill River for her and dogs were sent to common homeless hangouts. Her presence in the community was missed, to the point that Bob Walters, the director of the Science Barge who dedicates much of his time to Yonkers and its homeless population, went to see Geiss to give him information on Ivy's disappearance. Sadly, her case has largely been forgotten, though not by Geiss (or, for that matter, Walters). “I know who did it,” Geiss says grimly, “but I can't find a body.” The boyfriend who Geiss believes is culpable is long gone, and without a body Geiss can't make an arrest. Ivy was an older woman, with no family to speak of. Will there ever be justice for her and others like her? All we and John Geiss can do for now is sit, wait, and remember.

October 27, 2014

By Jacob Ready

It’s the sort of thing that should never happen to anyone. On a Friday night last January, Angel, a Yonkers resident, and her boyfriend were stopped by police on Yonkers Avenue while trying to catch a cab on the way home from work. Despite the fact that he was committing no crime, two police officers shoved Angel’s boyfriend against their car, holding him there for over an hour because he had no identification. It wasn’t until a third officer intervened that Angel and her boyfriend were free to leave. Angel believes that this incident was the result of racial profiling—she could find no other reason for her and her boyfriend’s Mexican ethnicity for this mistreatment.

Angel knew little about officer mounted cameras when I spoke with her on the sidewalk of South Broadway in Getty Square, but when I asked her about them, she thought they were a good idea. These cameras, mounted on police officers and recording their interactions with citizens hold the potential to create a new level of accountability, preventing them from targeting people based on no other cause than their race. Some organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union believe that with the implementation of this technology, egregious instances of profiling such as the one Angel described to me could be eliminated, or at least greatly reduced.

There’s been a lot of talk about instances of racial profiling and police accountability sparked by recent national events. While the tragic deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown are far from unique in America’s long history of racialized violence, they have certainly reignited the conversation about race, violence, and law enforcement, and resituated them in the context of new technology. From Ferguson, Missouri to New York City, local law enforcement agencies have begun researching and implementing this technology, spending large amount of money to restore a reputation of accountability and legitimacy to their police work. But what about Yonkers? Despite its proximity to the camera savvy NYPD, cameras on the city’s police are noticeably lacking. According to a source in the Yonkers Police department, body mounted cameras have yet to be tested by the city’s police officers, though the department is currently researching this technology. Though the department makes use of car mounted dash cams, cameras mounted on officers seems far off. While bureaucracy, politics, and red tape may be holding off the implementation of these cameras, funding is of course a main concern (these cameras ain’t cheap!). To quote one member of the Services Commission in nearby Mt. Vernon about that city’s own testing of officer mounted cameras, “our primary concerns are vests and cars.” Until Yonkers and Mount Vernon’s basic law enforcement needs are met, officer mounted cameras may be a far off future.

But how do the people of Yonkers feel about this technology? Many of those I talked to knew little about the cameras, but thought they had great potential for increasing police accountability. “I don’t believe that all cops are bad cops,” said Sharon, a woman in Getty Square, “but I think these cameras will keep all the cops on their best behavior.” Jerry Blackstone, a 76 year old Hudson View resident put it more colorfully: “If you know someone’s watching you, you don’t pick your nose, you don’t scratch your ass. These cameras will make them [the police] think twice before displacing their aggression on innocent people.” Others expressed approval for the devices, but concern for their implementation. “I think they’ll turn them off! What’s to stop them?” remarked Dara, an elderly Yonkersite waiting for the 6 Bus. Shannon, a mother and Bronxville resident also at the bus stop, remarked that she had trouble reconciling the prevention of police brutality with the invasion of an officer’s own right to privacy. “Maybe they should just put cameras on certain individuals—officers with a history of aggression.”

Some in Yonkers are hesitant to trust these cameras, voicing concerns about the civil liberties of individual citizens interacting with camera wielding officers. Shavon, a journalism student and Bronx resident visiting Getty Square remarked that these cameras had just as much potential to open up or invade an individual’s privacy as they did to protect others from profiling. More vocal opposition came from two firefighters, one a former cop, who working outside the Bezack center on Alexander Street. “No comment—no!” the former cop said, exasperatedly, expressing his disapproval for the cameras. His partner had a little more to say:  “Police often overlook minor illegal behavior at their own discretion, but with a camera they can’t do that. If a kid tells an officer to fuck off, he can’t beat him up, but he also can’t let him go either, he’s got to bring him in.” This firefighter expressed concern for individuals against incriminating themselves, especially if police were to enter their homes, cameras and all, something which even Jerry Blackstone might agree with (“I like cameras everywhere, except for my house!,” he remarked). Aside from the ethics of this form of surveillance and/or accountability, the firefighter also brought up an important point about the implementation of officer mounted cameras: “it would require a lot of police training, civilian education, and funding,” which might require resources out of reach for our city’s police. For the time being at least, the city of Yonkers seems to agree with him.

December 19, 2014

By Blair Mason

Myriam Choate was standing in the parking lot outside Iglesia Memorial San Andres, minding her business, when she saw violence erupt in front of her.  “I witnessed a young dude flat out punch his girlfriend, just in front of me, just on the street.”  A couple had been walking by the church when the woman’s phone rang and they started arguing.  A man had called her, and the couple raised their voices, shouting at each other until he punched her.  Myriam called the police, but the couple were long gone before anyone responded.  She never saw them again. “What shocked me was just how brazenly he did it, in public.”  This wasn’t the dead of night, or a infamous street corner.  This was the middle of the day, sun shining, bordered on either side by a park and church.

When I ask her about domestic violence, this is just one of many instances that come to her mind.  As the Director of San Andres’s after-school program, her job is to know the families of the students under her care. Her kids all come from the surrounding neighborhood.  All are poor and several are undocumented.  “Sometimes you just get an inkling,” she says, “that the kids have seen things.”  Myriam would guess that a lot of the households have gone through some period of abuse, whether spousal or parental.  

For Myriam, its the commonality of violence in the home that frightens her the most.  She knows a woman who gets knocked around by her husband.  One day the woman came into the church and showed Myriam a bruise on her arm he had inflicted on her the week before.  “The way she told me was very nonchalant,” Myriam said.  “Sometimes it just seems like a way of life.  It’s not pockets in a normally nice place and time.”  Myriam says that a lot of the time, families don’t even recognize it as violence or even anything wrong.  “It’s the way they were parented, with the back of the hand, and that’s how they learned it.”  

Domestic violence has been the talk of the nation after high-profile celebrities have been implicated as abusers.  After video was released of NFL running back Ray Rice beating on his then-fiance in a casino elevator, everyone from sports reporters to TMZ to President Obama himself had an opinion on the matter:  Should he be suspended? Should Janay Rice have stayed? Did the NFL have a role to play in prevent abuse?  And while Obama recently announced a program of administrative relief, protecting millions of undocumented immigrants with a promise that “you can come out of the shadows,” conversations addressing the conflation of the two rarely come up.  What happens when your life is controlled not just by your partner but by your lack of documents?  How can you live in fear of both the authority in your home and the government outside of it?  

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Robin Larkin, the Director of Cabrini Immigrant Services, an immigrant rights nonprofit, says that the day-to-day peril of living undocumented exacts a heavy mental toll.   “There are such pressures on families, especially on both partners.  Such pressure on undocumented populations creates pressure on families.  When you are living life under the radar and working under the radar and don’t have a voice any emotion or anger that can’t be expressed because of fears of losing your job or extra fears because of your status creates a powder keg situation at home.”

There’s also a certain tendency in the immigrant community to stay quiet about domestic violence and abuse.  Robin says that for many of her clients divorce is not something that is seen as an option.  “In so many of the cases, the partners or the spouses stay together” even after the situation got bad enough to seek help from her organization in the first place. Between the social and economic pressure to stay with your spouse and the view that physical or emotional violence in a family is normal, “it takes a lot for people to come forward and report it, it takes a long time for them to even do that.”

No one really knows how many undocumented immigrants like in Yonkers, though Mayor Mike Spano has said he is convinced the number is large enough to bump the city up from the fourth largest in New York State to the third.  The undocumented community in Yonkers, particularly members who are victims of violent crimes like domestic violence, is caught in the crosshairs of a national debate playing itself out in our police departments and our courts.  As Robin says, “the undocumented community still leads pretty hidden lives,” and this means that when a crime occurs in the community the facts are also more likely to remain in the shadows.  There’s two different approaches to this problem, at total odds with each other.

The Immigrant and Customs Enforcement, ICE, has been using local police records to track down undocumented immigrants and immigrants with papers but who might have committed serious crimes.  In 2011, ICE “activated” Westchester County law enforcement agencies in its program called “Secure Communities.”  Under Secure Communities, everyone who gets arrested  in Westchester, long before any determination of whether they are guilty or innocent, gets their fingerprints sent off to ICE to be checked against their database of “criminal aliens.”  If the system finds a match, you’re suddenly detained by ICE instead of by the police, and you begin the long, winding road to deportation.

Let’s explore a hypothetical for a moment.  Let’s say the cops get called to a house because of a domestic fight.  The husband is definitely the aggressor, but both partners get brought down to the station, fingerprinted, and questioned.  When the wife first tried to enter the United States, she got caught by border patrol, returned to Mexico, and tried again successfully.  Her fingerprints are now in ICE’s system as a “repeat immigration violator,” one of the supposed “criminal aliens” ICE is trying so hard to deport.  By ICE’s own statistics, 26% of those deported in 2011 through Secure Communities had no criminal convictions, just immigration violations every undocumented immigrant could have.  Even in the best-case scenario, where eventually granted prosecutorial discretion and allowed to stay despite undocumented status, the process still involves a long detention and several harrowing months of uncertainty.  When they pick up the phone to call the police, undocumented women feel they have to make a choice: do they value their safety from their husband, or their safety from deportation?

New York City has recognized the dangers even the fear  of exposure can cause.  In November, city law enforcement agencies cut ties with Secure Communities, refusing to send their fingerprint information on to ICE or granting their requests for holds.  Mayor de Blasio supported the move, saying that “our City is not served when New Yorkers with strong ties in the community are afraid to engage with law enforcement because they fear deportation.”  But for the undocumented community, that fear remains.  It looms over them, an ever-present reminder that life for them is not free, and every phone call to the police could lead to an arrest, and that arrest could lead to deportation.

In light of these fears, there’s a movement to de-mystify the process of reporting crimes and encourage undocumented immigrants to seek help from the police. Westchester County is championed by a few hardworking nonprofit organizations who seek to bolster and support undocumented immigrants, whether it’s through victims’ shelters or counseling or legal services.  

Immigrants who are victims of domestic violence can sometimes find refuge in two specially created visas to relieve the effects of trauma.  One was created under the Violence Against Women Act to protect spouses, children, and parents whose status is dependent on their abuser.  When a woman marries a U.S. citizen man, for example, she is eligible for a green card and eventual citizenship.  That requires, however, that she remain married to her husband, and that he attend all the interviews with immigration officials.  Tim Fallon, Senior Immigration Attorney at My Sister’s Place, notes that beside the obvious peril of remaining with an abusive spouse, the papers themselves are actually “a huge factor in abuse.”  He explains that several abusers think, “I’ll show up to the interview with you but then I’ll sabotage you.”  Withholding

documents, whether keeping the physical documents themselves or preventing you from applying for status, gives the abuser huge amounts of control over the daily lives of their victim. The VAWA self-petition allows a battered spouse to apply for that green card without the input or knowledge of the abuser.

However, the VAWA is only available to those who are already eligible for some type of documentation.  For undocumented victims, the only relief is the U Visa.  As Robin Larkin notes, the U Visa was created to help combat the fear undocumented immigrants have of the police.  “If you are a victim of a crime, the process wants people to come forward and participate in the prosecution of the perpetrator of that crime.”  The U Visa is different from the VAWA because you do not have to have any particular relationship to the with the suspect.  Instead, the U Visa is concerned with your relationship with law enforcement.  If you cooperated fully--testifying in court, coming in for interviews, answering all questions--the system will reward you with legal status that is eventually convertible into a green card.  To apply for a U Visa, you have to get a law enforcement agency to sign a certification agreeing that you did your utmost to cooperate.

If a victim of domestic violence helps law enforcement track down or prosecute her abuser, the U-Visa is seen as compensation for the trauma underwent.  She can help the Westchester District Attorney’s Office and testify in court, or work with family court to get restriction orders. But what if the case never goes to trial?  Domestic violence cases are notoriously hard to prosecute.  A woman could work with the police, answering every question and undergoing strict tests, but through no fault of her own there just isn’t enough evidence to prosecute or get a restraining order.  She still assisted an investigation at great costs to herself, even if there’s nothing to show for it at the end.  The police department that investigated the crime can still sign the victim’s U Certification.  Unfortunately, as Robin remarks, “one of the challenges for providers and attorneys is that there’s not always the understanding around to process these petitions.”  Signing the U Certification does not grant the petitioner status, it merely acknowledges the victim’s cooperation. Without the signature, the petition is meaningless.  But “there’s not a standardized procedure to get the certification,” and the entire process is discretionary.  If they won’t sign a particular U Certification, they don’t have to.  If a police department comes to the conclusion that they won’t sign any U Certifications,  there’s nothing to be done.  At Cabrini Immigrant Services “there are cases that are just stalled because no one will sign the certification.”

The Yonkers Police Department may very well be one of these stalled departments.  An Westchester-based immigration attorney, who didn’t want to be named out of concern of damaging his relationship with the City, said that Yonkers Police Department is extremely unwilling to sign U Certifications.  “We’ve tried sometimes, but it’s hard.  It depends on who makes the decisions.”  If the case goes all the way to prosecution, then “we just go to the Westchester District Attorney’s office and get them to sign it.”  Despite several attempts, neither the Yonkers Police Department nor the Mayor’s Office responded to requests for comment.

The struggle over U Visas is emblematic of a tension felt deeply within immigrant communities.   In order for the justice system to work properly, all individuals must trust it, and this trust does not come naturally to many immigrants. There is a latent suspicion of governmental institutions, brought over with the trauma of living in more dangerous and corrupt nations.  That trust must be earned before it can be freely given.  And yet the system treats human beings as criminals unless proven otherwise, so suspicious of their intentions that decent, law-abiding folk cannot get a paper signed recognizing their goodwill.  For victims of domestic violence, for whom reporting is already a desperate and traumatic act, anxiety about the fairness of our institutions is even more deeply felt.  Abuse is about taking control of your life away from you.  Justice should be about giving it back.

Myriam, in her church on a street corner in Southwest Yonkers, puts it more simply.  “When the kids open up the fire hydrant they’re always quick to show up,” she says, shaking her head. “If they want people in this neighborhood to feel like they cared then they need to show up when people call.”

10/22/14

By Phoebe Temkin

It was a beautiful day in downtown Yonkers. A clear blue sky stretched out over Hudson River and one of its tributaries, the Saw Mill River. But on the morning of October 6th, Yonkers Police were greeted with a more than unsettling sight on one of the banks of the Saw Mill: a cluster of animal innards.

Police explained that they had been alerted by an anonymous tip to the grisly scene on Dock Street, just under the bridge from the Yonkers Railroad Station. They arrived to find four separate entrails grouped together beneath a railing overlooking the river. There were two plastic bags of the kind you might fill with fruit in a grocery store. One of these bags contained what seemed to be intestines. A pair of lungs and trachea were also left out on the concrete. All of the innards were fresh, with no sign or smell of decomposition.

It was unclear what kind of animal the organs came from. “We'll have to freeze and send them to animal shelters for tests,” a detective said, likely referring to the Service for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Yonkers has had some recent experience with animal remains—earlier this spring dozens of dead cats were found stuffed in plastic bags. The detective refused to comment on this, saying that the type of animal has to be identified “before we go off on a tangent.”

When asked if it was likely that the person who had left the remains behind would be caught, police smirked and said sarcastically, “We always catch them.” With the identify of a mass cat killer still unknown, this seems fairly unlikely. It may be that this will remain yet another ghoulish mystery. Interestingly enough, however, the past weekend, October 4th to October 5th, was the Islamic holiday Eid al-Adha in which a sheep or goat may be sacrificed to mark the end of the Hajj (an annual pilgrimage to Mecca).

Throughout most of the morning, many police and detectives gathered at the scene, likely to ensure that the remains would not be disturbed. At 11:30 they dispersed, leaving no trace of the unpleasant discovery.  

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12/10/14

By Chris Hoffman

A nine year old walks into his school with a steak knife…

No, this is not the beginning of a joke. This is the opening of a case in the Yonkers Youth Court, a court system set up in Yonkers for first-time, misdemeanor offending youth. Located in the Justice Center on South Broadway, the court is separate from Yonkers Family Court. In fact, the Yonkers Youth Court opens after the lawyers and judges have gone home. Then who, you may ask, runs the Youth Court?

The Yonkers Youth Court is tried and executed by high school students from Yonkers. Though overseen by the Yonkers Bureau of Youth, the Yonkers Youth Court is essentially run by high school students, with students serving as judges, defense attorneys, and the prosecution.

So how does this all work? Cases are screened where those specifically for first time misdemeanor offending youth are given the option of holding their trial in Youth Court instead of Family Court. One advantage of Youth Court is that the crime is not officially on record as a misdemeanor, and instead, is left for the Youth Court.

The punishments are also set by the judge. These usually include some sort of community service. “Though, I used to get creative,” says Katie VanBrammer, a retired Youth Court Judge. “Sometimes I would have the defendant write apologies to all of the people that were effected by the crime, or have them list possible alternative actions they could have taken.” Possible alternative sentences include listing other ways to deal with bullies, other than bringing a knife to school.

Minor crimes that may land youth into the court include possessions of small amounts of marijuana, possessions of knives, and even trespassing. One case in the past included a school bomber. The case was brought to the youth court for the bomb, made by school supplies, did not cause any damage.

The majority of Youth Court cases have to do with weapon violations. “I see a lot of knife cases,” says Malik Martin, a retired Youth Court Defense attorney. “So many of them were the same. I had a knife, I wanted protection.”

With the increasing in school shootings, the Yonkers Youth Court is a critical perspective into violence in schools. “This one kid brought a knife with him for protection. An older man was threatening him and his younger sister, and he just wanted to keep her safe,” remembers Martin. “Many parents mentioned reaching out to schools in the past, but the bullying never stopped,” adds VanBrammer.

Though the Youth Court offers a ticket out of Family Court and a record while providing invaluable experiences to Yonkers students interested in law, the youth court is not perfect. Martin believes that the Youth Court gives a “skewed” perspective on law. “My goal is to make sure they know the law isn’t here to treat them like crap. Though, the court isn’t perfect.” Martin is referring to the fact that a defendant must plead guilty in order to bring the case to youth court. “By pleading guilty, you’ve changed the whole point of the law. I’m not there to show if you’re innocent, I’m there to determine whether you deserve a steep punishment or not.”

In addition to this warped sense of the legal system, the youth court must deal with difficult dynamics, including those dealing with privilege. “You know, the defendants came because it was a way out. We went to learn how to practice law,” recalls Martin. “The program used to be associated with Lincoln and the school’s Mock Trial team,” states VanBrammer. Now, the program is virtually unknown by those that do not have to interact with it. “Usually the first time parents hear about it is their first day in court.”

For all of its problems, the Youth Court still is an innovative and creative process that may lead to solutions for some of the many problems the youth of Yonkers face today. “You learn things. Some of them you might not want to learn. Like the law isn’t always fair,” mentions Martin.

12/10/14

By Chris Hoffman

Two years ago, the body of a murdered young woman was found in a trash bag on Rossmore, a street. Today, a sign, which reads “NO DUMPING” in large black letters, stands where the body was found. What seems like a cruel joke is actually the product of a year-long petition run by a few of Rossmore’s residents. “People dump grass clippings all the time, and the young get high over there,” reported one Rossmore resident. The petition asked for the City of Yonkers to take action. In response, the City of Yonkers erected a sign that reads “No Dumping City of Yonkers Ordinance 91-38 Minimum Fine $5000.” However, not everyone is excited about the new sign.

“I think it’s a bit eerie. And disrespectful to the victim and her family,” said one Rossmore Resident.  The victim, Miss Pamela Graddick, was a twenty-six year old Bronx resident and daycare worker. Experts believe her body was dumped in the wooded area on the border of Bronxville and Yonkers due to its proximity to the Bronx River Parkway.

“One of my neighbors complained about the smell and thought it was coming from my property,” recounts another Rossmore native. “I saw a black plastic bag that I hadn’t noticed. It smelled pretty bad, and I assumed it was a dead dog. Then I attempted to pick it up. It was way too heavy for a dog. That’s when I called 911.”

“I walked over with the detective, we took out a pocket knife and cut it open. There were maggots. And I saw that it wasn’t a dog.”

Suddenly, Rossmore was crowded with police. “It’s a quiet, safe street. Nothing like this has ever happened,” reflected one neighbor.

“There were two women in hazmat suits. They looked like Martian people as they probed the street for clues,” remembered another neighbor.

Today, the case remains open, and many people still have questions.

The police “didn’t pursue it as much as we wanted,” said Tawanna, Graddick’s sister.

“It was a sloppy job. They left the red crime scene flags for months. I had to clean them up,” reflected another neighbor.

“I just have so many questions. What if this happened a few hundred feet in the other direction, in Bronxville? Would the case be any different? Would they have found the killer?”

“I was surprised at the lack of news sources on this case,” mentioned another resident. “I thought it was big news.”

Even though experts believe that Miss Graddick was killed in the Bronx, neighbors wonder why her body was dumped on their street.

“The police never go up and down this street. They didn’t even know where it was. They don’t know this neighborhood.”

Though residents insist that no one on that lived on the street could have been involved, there was one common conclusion:
 

“You don’t find this block by accident.”

October 27th 2014

By Sachi Shah

September 22, 2014

YONKERS – At 1pm this Monday afternoon, a middle aged, greying African-American man was contained and handcuffed by five police officers and taken put into an ambulance. The incident took place on Main Street, one of the busiest streets of Downtown Yonkers, right by Getty Square and Martin’s department store. The man appeared to have tripped and almost flown a few feet before he fell to the ground and began to have seizures. Construction workers, who happened to be fixing a drain on the road, rushed to the man’s rescue and called 911. The man who was facing the ground was turned onto his right side and continued to seize sporadically.

After a few minutes, the area was flooded with men who appeared to be substance abusers – possibly heroin or crack cocaine users, as indicated by burned spoon and needle marks on their hands. One of these men seemed to know the seizing man, but when asked questions about the identity of the man, his friend seemed unable to respond. Another one of the substance abusers began taking pictures on his cell phone of the seizing man, but was immediately asked to move away from the premises by the construction workers.

Passersby gathered around the scene. One woman who was inquiring about what was taking place mentioned, “The man is probably someone who goes to the homeless shelter nearby. There are lots of bums in the area.” On contacting The Sharing Community Inc., the homeless shelter and soup kitchen located on the adjoining Hudson Street, a manager curtly replied, “We are not aware of the incident, it did not happen on our property. Thank you for calling and for your consideration.”

The police arrived at the scene, with a fire truck in tow, about ten minutes after the incident took place. An ambulance followed a few minutes later. The police asked the seizing man’s friend questions about what substances the man was on and what his name was, but were also given no concrete answers. When the police began to lift the seizing man, who on close inspection seemed to be inebriated too, he became verbally abusive and uncooperative. He seemed reluctant to go with the police, and the police had to forcefully handcuff and sedate him to be able to put him on a stretcher and take him to the hospital for treatment. When contacted about the incident, the police press office said, “We do not reveal such information to the public unless the caller is a family member.”  

Pamela Segura, a woman who works on Main Street said, “It’s sad how this happens here in broad daylight every now and then. And anyone who comes here after the incident is over would never even know it ever happened.”

There seem to be a number of such cases that occur ever so often in downtown Yonkers, but because of the lack of transparency and information surrounding them, the public is not aware about the perils of the homeless and substance abusers.