Thursday, June 23, 2011

Update On June 22 Early Morning Shooting At Roosevelt Island's Roosevelt Landings Building - Security Improvements Need To Be Made By Residents and Landlord Urban American

Image from Roosevelt Landings Residents Association

Updating post from yesterday on the shooting that occurred at Roosevelt Landings (formerly known as Eastwood), Joyce Mincheff of the Roosevelt Landings Residents Association comments:
I've just learned of a shooting in the hallway of 540 Main Street today. Enough is enough! The lax security for Roosevelt Landings has got to stop!

Doors are left wide open for hours at a time. Front door locks are frequently broken for weeks on end. It's not okay. It's an invitation for trouble. Anyone with half a brain can get access to any Roosevelt Landings corridor from any Roosevelt Landings entrance. One door can make the difference.

We are lucky that a child was not injured by a stray bullet. It's irrelevant what the cause. Access to the building by non-residents has got to stop. The safety of tenants is not an option!

When locks break, it's imperative that you station a private security guard at that entrance until it can be secured or place one of your staff to serve that function! If the Public Safety Dept. can spare the manpower, that would be wonderful, but frankly, security of the building is the responsibility of Urban American. No matter how you do so, you need to handle it.

Doors can not be left wide open by your staff, for any reason! Not back doors, not side doors.... none of them. And all intercom systems must be functional throughout the building, 24/7.

I'd like to meet with you and Director Guerra tomorrow AM to discuss this further. Please advise.
Roosevelt Island Public Safety Director Keith Guerra describes what happened:
...While walking through the 4th floor corridor, the victim was confronted by two males wearing hooded sweatshirts. He was shot twice in the arm and hip (not life threatening) with a small caliber round, and transported to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Thus far, there have been no arrests. It is unknown at this time if the incident is Gang related. NYPD is currently involved in an ongoing investigation. 
Joshua Eisenberg, General Counsel for Urban American (Landlord for Roosevelt Landings) states:
We are working closely with NYPD and PSD to determine how the assailant gained access and will identify and address any and all security improvements that we can make. At the time of the incident all doors and locks were functioning. It appears that the shooter may have been invited to the building or given access by another tenant, as no forced or unauthorized entry was apparent.
As Director Guerra reports it is unknown if this shooting is gang related, but there is a Roosevelt Island Public Safety Department Gang Awareness Summit For Adults taking place tonight at Good Shepherd Community Center (6:30 PM) which may provide more information on this incident as well as provide valuable assistance and knowledge on the issue of gangs.

UPDATE 2:05 PM -  Roosevelt Landings Residents Association President Joyce Mincheff adds:
Last night at 2:30 AM (actually morning), I toured the building with the Public Safety Dept. to determine whether doors were functioning, locking and locked. The Officers and I detected 6 doors that were either completely ajar and/or had broken locks and were not locking. I was told some of those doors had been reported to Management over a period of many weeks. For Josh Eisenberg to claim that all the doors were locked is just plain inconsistent with documentation that the Public Safety Department indicated they have on file.
Unlocked and open doors have long been an issue for residents in our building. It took management several months to fix the locks at 540 and 580 Main St. During this time, management, including Josh Eisenberg, failed to even give me the courtesy of responding to my emails when I requested that they post Security at the unlocked doors.
Today, I investigated the door status in the building again. Right on Main Street I detected 3 entrances where management's own staff had propped the doors open. They had cleaned the location and left the lobbies completely unguarded. No one was posted at the door. Anyone could walk right in.
I know of at least one law suit that is currently pending that accuses management of being lax in their security practices. In this case, a woman was badly beaten and paralyzed in her home in Roosevelt Landings. 
The state of lawlessness that exists in Roosevelt Landings is enhanced by Management's failure to practice what rational people would find perfectly normal security, and I don't see how Mr. Eisenberg could possibly be correct in his sense of the building's security at the time of the incident.
As a precautionary measure, the residents association in the building has hung up signs, (many in the very same places that managment currently has signs about far less important issues), that alerts our tenants to the problem and advises them to contact managment and 311 in the event the problem is not fixed. The maintenance staff promptly removed our signs.

11 comments :

unbelievable said...

This is nuts. If public safety had guns I would feel much better to have them patrol in much more frequency. Reality is, I would rather they not patrol for the fear of having them killed due to their inability to protect themselves.

Oh yea, I know of a perfect vandals solution! Let's beg the 114pct to put more NYPD here, whe we can simply arm our own police force and get it right!

unbelievable said...

This is nuts. If public safety had guns I would feel much better to have them patrol in much more frequency. Reality is, I would rather they not patrol for the fear of having them killed due to their inability to protect themselves.

Oh yea, I know of a perfect vandals solution! Let's beg the 114pct to put more NYPD here!

Oh wait, why do the MOST OBVIOUS when we can simply arm our own police force and get it right!

Sasha said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jesse said...

UA needs to take serious measures to secure this property. Joyce is right. For them to say that the building is secure is a joke.

Currently, anyone who lives in any part of the RL complex is able to enter the building at any lobby and wander far from the area around their own residence.

Lock down the exterior doors with magnetic locks.

Lock down the lobbies with magnetic locks, and keys that are different from building to building.

Residents should not be allowed to wander around from one building to the next if they have no business there.

Personally I think they should block access between buildings, and lock the doors in the exit stairwells so they can only be opened from the side facing the residences.

Anonymous said...

Well, glad my lease is up next month, because this is total confirmation that it's time to move. I live with protection (legally registered), and I am an extremely cautious/safe individual. I am always ready for bad things to happen, and will do whatever it takes to protect first my wife and myself. Unfortunately, we've had bad things happen to us in the past (robbed while at home; live in East Harlem) and I vowed to never be unprepared as a man, to protect my family. The only reason we moved to Roosevelt Island, was because we saw it as a safe haven. In the last 4-5 months, our floor has seen robberies, gang violence, drug dealing, and fights outside right next to the PSD headquarters. I feel so sorry for the elderly that see this kind of violence and trash starting to come and consume these certain places, within the Island. I *heart* this place, and it will be hard to move, but we will no longer live in an apartment complex that does not have proper security, and a doorman. Though something sounds very fishy about this shooting, it could have been prevented. YES, IT COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED! There are steps everyone, especially Roosevelt Landings management, could have taken in order to secure its residence! I'm ashamed of them, and the people that have helped tarnish these locations.

Everyone can do their part in not letting in people without the magnetic keycards. I never do, and have had altercations from people that are offended that I won't let them in. Listen, if someone does not have the magnetic key card to unlock the front door, DO NOT let them in! It's as simple as that. I'm amazed at the line of people whom wait for someone with a key card to open the front door. Sometimes there are 6-8 people waiting around outside until someone comes around to open it! What do I do in that situation? I go AROUND the back, and unlock the door, with my key, bypassing all of those people. And yes, they get upset and knock on the glass as I wait for elevator to arrive. I have a hunch that some of these people are living in the complex illegally. If you live there, every resident has a card to get in, if you're not on the lease, you don't get one.

Folks, help spread common sense! The ignorance of people in this world saddens me. The kids that hang around the hallways inside and outside terrify my wife and anger me. Where are their parents? Why are these kids just hanging out in the hallways? Why are they not at home playing games, or doing something else? What is it about these hallways that are so interesting to these kids? This kind of activity brews nothing but trouble. I'm telling you, if this type of activity continues and people ignore the common sense of local security, and kicking these kids out of the hallways, and OFF THE STREETS, things will continue to get much worse. Thank God no one died this time....My fellow residence, let us make this message loud and clear, to help protect one another from future dangerous activities by LOCKING the doors, keeping them shut, and getting management to fix all the door locks. This is crazy, insane and needs to stop...NOW!

Bring Back Eastwood said...

K.Guerra down played the shooting last night. By saying the wounds were superficial, by saying it was an isolated incident, by saying it was a small caliber gun. WHO CARES? The fact that there WAS a gun is the issue.

These buildings are UA's responsibility. The amount of rent they are collecting at the end of the day does not MATCH the amount of security we get. Regardless of PSD. There needs to be cameras at all exit/entrances. The doors need to be LOCKED at all times. We need doormen.

Jesse said...

Saw 3 doors propped just now, just in walking from Public Safety to the rear of 560. UA clearly is taking security seriously.

Anonymous said...

I don't think Mr. Guerra downplayed anything. That's why his department hosted that Gang Summit last night, which was very good, by the way.

We have to do what was suggested and that is call PSD & the NYPD when we see something - even if we think we know the kids. Obviously, we don't really know them.

Just knowing that a Gang Specialist from Albany has stuff on kids here on R.I. tells you something.

unbelievable said...

Public safety had all the dirt on the kids.

Not nypd, not the gang speaker, not Albany.

The psd detectives were the ones uncovering these unsavory residents.

All psd did was inform the gang summit speaker.

Anonymous said...

are they sure it was in roosevelt landings ,it may have been in southtown

unbelievable said...

Million percent sure. 4th floor by 540 Main Street.