Saturday Morning Bizarre Drama At The Roosevelt Island Good Shepherd Bus Stop, Apparent Snatching Of Woman Into Black Van Was Fake, Resident Praises RI Public Safety Department For Quick Action

Long time Roosevelt Island resident Nina Lublin reports:

I will say this about our Roosevelt Island Public Safety Department (PSD) -- on Saturday, April 13, they quickly rose to the occasion regarding a bizarre incident by the Good Shepherd Chapel

around 10 am. Please read carefully:

With the Farmers Market in high gear, early Cherry Blossom Festival arrivals out on Main Street, & the usual Saturday morning activity, only a small handful of folks saw a black van pull up to the bus stop by the Good Shepherd Chapel, saw two folks jump out from the van to grab a young woman kicking, screaming and resisting being pulled into the van, which then drove south on Main Street.

A few quick thinking RI folks ran to the PSD office while a few others looked for folks near
Nisi & the Chapel who saw what happened. The one PSD officer who was detailed to the Farmers Market & Crosswalk & closest to what was happening, was among the last to pick up on what was occurring.

In the 60 seconds it took the PSD folks to come out from the office, it was determined that the "grab" was part of a video or movie being recorded by some guy with a small video camera near the church -- WITHOUT any RIOC permit or even notifying PSO that they were even doing this.

The van was pulled over by PSD on its way back from their U-turn at the flagpole & held in front of the PSD office, with it's occupants laughing, the young woman inside saying "I'm OK, really", and with the Sargent in charge, whose name I cannot remember, lecturing the "film maker" about RIOC permits, PSD notifications, and responding to his claim that "we told the people in the bus stop what we were doing", as if that made it OK.

The mom of the two small children (about 4- & 6-yrs old) and a few others were a little traumatized after being too close to what was happening. We all did our best to calm them down.

This could have been a very different event with a different outcome... We are lucky to live somewhere that when we do see something, we do say something -- and quickly.

Bravo to the PSD for doing their jobs -- especially this time.