Two Roosevelt Island Residents Get Into Verbal Dispute About Unleashed Dogs, Escalates Into Fight And RIOC Public Safety Department Arrests One For Assault - RIOC PSD Starts To Enforce No Roosevelt Island Unleashed Dogs Or Dogs On Playing Fields

The Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) May 6 Public Safety Incident report listed an assault taking place at 11 East Loop Road (Cornell Tech Tata Innovation Center)

On Friday, May 7, I asked RIOC Public Safety Department (PSD) Chief Kevin Brown: 

Is there any more information on the Assault last night? What happened, any injuries, weapons used? 

05/06/21 – 2040 – 11 East Loop Rd – Assault – PSD responded – PSD arrested subject

Under RIOC President Shelton Haynes new media information policy, Chief Brown is no longer allowed to answer questions directly from the the local Roosevelt Island media as he and his predecessors, Chief Jack McManus and Chief Keith Guerra, had done for more than 10 years providing information to the community.

On Wednesday, May 12, RIOC Public Information Officer Amy Smith responded to my inquiry about the May 6 assault. According to Ms Smith:

On the evening of May 6^th, two Roosevelt Island residents engaged in a verbal dispute over an unleashed dog. The dispute escalated to a physical assault which resulted in an arrest where a desk appearance ticket (DAT) was issued.

I replied asking Ms Smith: 

As a follow up, was the person with unleashed dog the one arrested or the other person.  

What were the approximate ages of people involved and male or female. 

The location is described as East Loop Road. Was it on the Cornell campus or hills?

I was working on a story about RIOC dog policy so this incident is very relevant.

Ms Smith answered today:

While we can’t comment on the residents’ gender, we can inform you that they are aged 58 and 30 years. The incident took place at 11 East Loop Road.

During the April 20 Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) Public Safety Committee meeting with Chief Brown, a resident questioned the Chief about problems caused by the increasing number of unleashed dogs on Roosevelt Island, 

 

Chief Brown said that PSD was about to begin enforcing a policy of no unleashed dogs on Roosevelt Island and no dogs on Roosevelt Island ball fields. 

 Recent RIOC Public Safety Reports show unleashed dog incidents.

• 05/07/21 – 0758 – 20‐30 River Road – Unleashed Dog – PSD responded – Condition unfounded 
• 05/07/21 – 1215 – 540 Main St – Unleashed Dog – PSD responded – Condition corrected 
• 05/04/21 – 1125 – 755 Main St – Unleashed Dog – PSD responded – Condition corrected. 

A Roosevelt Island resident told me today about a recent experience being verbally abused and cursed at for politely asking a dog owner to put a leash on his dog and parents have expressed concerns over unleashed dogs running towards their children.

Another resident added:

Unleashed dogs all over island, not just Cornell Campus!

A Roosevelt Island dog owner has another perspective:

My daughter was approached by Public Safety today for having our puppy off leash near the soccer field. They said that someone calls Public Safety daily to complain about dogs off leash.

Public Safety recently changed the language on the website- it used to say that PS abides by NYC leash laws which are more flexible between 6 and 9 AM. 

Anyway, I think the problem is that the dog parks are awful. We go to both of them but they are just gross and dangerous- Do you know how one would go about having RIOC pay attention to the condition of the dog parks so there is a safe place for dogs to be off leash and play?

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