Parolee Escape at One Pierrepont Plaza

By on September 26, 2008 11:04 pm in Brooklyn Heights, crime, News

As a commenter on the previous post noted, this afternoon a parolee fled from an interrogation room at One Pierrepont Plaza, a building which the federal parole office shares with part of St. Ann’s School, and was pursued on the street by officers, at least one of whom may have drawn his weapon, ten minutes before school was to be dismissed. Channel 9 has a full report here.

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  • Anonymous

    I’m sure the majority of the sensible residents of Brooklyn Heights would stand side by side with the concerned parents of St. Ann’s to demand accountability from the federal court and the judge in charge. If there is a demonstration planned, count me in! Let’s show this arrogant judge that this is a decent neighborhood that does not like to be pushed around and lied to! Shame on him and shame on the Department of General Services for agreeing to build a parolee facility, handling drug dealers and sex offenders, next door to our beloved St. Ann’s school.

  • Alan

    don’t beat yourself up

  • BH resident

    So in which “indecent” neighborhood with “insensible” residents would you suggest such a facility be located? Maybe one where there is no private, $25,000+ tuition school to be “beloved”?

    Without diminishing the gravity of the situation described, I never get over that people can uphold such narcissistic, entitled perspectives with a straight face.

  • travy

    bh resident- how big is your basement? maybe we can relocate the pedophiles there?

  • Brooklyn Boy

    BH Residents asks a fair question and it deserves a fair answer.

    One location that makes sense for this parole office is in the nearby federal court building – there are already numerous criminals who go in and out of that building and very good security. Nobody could possibly make a run for it out of that building. And there is lots of precedent for a co-location of said facilities.

    Another place to put the office is deeper into Metrotech, where it would be surrounded by office buildings and other government agencies. To those of us who have been monitoring this situation closely that would seem the far more sensible move here.

    But alas both of these options cost money. And One Pierrepont Plaza is owned by Bruce Ratner, who gave the feds a sweetheart deal on the space.

    The feds took the deal without even looking at other options. They then took over the space without so much as letting the adjacent elementary school know they were coming (nor anyone else in the neighborhood). It was not known they were there until a parent saw some new metal detectors at the doors and started asking questions.

    Lots of hearings, meetings, and outrage later the parole board promised no sex offenders, no pedophiles, and said there was no worry of any danger to nearby residents and school children.

    Two weeks into the start of the school year it was discovered that in fact there were many, many sex offenders going in and out of the offices. And half a dozen of them were, in fact, pedophiles. And to top it off, we’ve now got guards chasing escapees down the street, in front of the school, with guns drawn.

    This is what the first poster means, I believe, when they say we’ve been “pushed around and lied to”.

  • bhmom

    Lots of complacent people (parents included) have been saying “well, the last place a parolee would commit a crime is next to the Parole Office,” but hopefully now they understand that what worries those of us with common sense are potentially tragic incidents like the one this past Tuesday.

  • Anonymous

    what a terrible idea to locate a parole facility -where sometimes people have to be re-arrested- right next to an elementary school, private or public. This was a major gaffe.
    It is apalling that city children, who already face so many risks, are exposed to yet more peril by the federal courts who are supposed to be protecting them.

  • bhmom

    Regarding your last paragraph, Anonymous, a lot of people have been telling the worried parents things like “well, your kid could be sitting next to a rapist in the local coffee shop so what’s the difference whether there are parolees walking around near the school?” Really logical thinking,no?

  • nancy

    I wonder,where are the people who were commenting here this summer,telling us that there wouldn’t be any problems,and we shouldn’t be concerned. This facility desn’t belong near ANY school, and frankly,I am getting sick and tired of people talking about private schools and rich snotty kids. We all make choices and struggle with them. If the City hadn’t abandoned PS 8 when my kids we able to go there, they would have. I’ll be damned if anyone is going to call my kids snotty or entitled. I work for the City and my husband is a sole proprietor. We pay a hell of a lot of taxes here and we deserve our kids to be safe, as well as the neighborhood we live in. I would feel the same way no matter where this facility would be located. People should get off telling people where they should send their kids to shcool. Everyone makes a sacrifice by living in NYC.
    Off my soapbox.

  • Anonymous

    you go Nancy! Let ’em have it!
    I agree with you completely.

  • stefan

    poster calling yourself “bh resident”:
    you need to get a grip. sounds like you are hating the heights and the folks who live here and are raising their children here. it is not “entitled” or “narcissistic” to demand that the government do what it can to keep children safe while you are at work earning a living. I think you are the one that sounds a little snobby and entitled. but maybe you just need your meds.

  • bhmom

    nancy, if I remember correctly even the general attitude of this website (and the associated newspaper) was the unconcerned, “don’t be alarmist” one that you describe from the summer.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    This blog isn’t associated with any newspaper. We occasionally link to stories in local or citywide papers, but have no affiliation with any of them.

  • stefan

    Claude, who are you affiliated with? Are you a one man band?

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    Stefan: If you’ll scroll down the right hand column, you’ll find the heading “BHB Staff” and, under that heading, a list of eleven people who contribute to the blog. None of us does this on a full-time basis. The two most frequent contributors, Homer Fink and Qfwfq, are both on vacation this week, so I’ve been filling in. I’m not affiliated in a business sense with anyone; I’m a lawyer in solo practice. Most if not all of the other staff members have full time day jobs. None of us is employed by a newspaper.

  • BH resident

    “it is not ‘entitled’ or ‘narcissistic’ to demand that the government do what it can to keep children safe while you are at work earning a living.”

    I can’t imagine that any of those folks outraged at the placement of this facility would be in the slightest bit concerned if it were placed near a public school in a neighborhood to which they’ve never been. It is indeed narcissistic and entitled to believe that the children of families wealthy enough to pay private school tuition are exempt from the general hazards of city living.

    I’ve lived here for more than a decade, I love it here, and I teach in one of those neighborhood private schools, but the idea that paying high property taxes entitles you to some sort of special treatment is absurd and offensive.

  • stefan

    Thanks Claude,
    good work!

  • stefan

    bh resident, don’t try to explain away what you wrote before, you are just making it worse. you obviously have a problem living in the heights. I sense envy, which is a vice.
    No one is saying that this facility should be relocated to a less affluent residential neighborhood, the concensus is that it should be relocated to a non-residential neighborhodd. can you wrap your brain around that concept? it should be in a commercial or business district, like Downtown, which is not the same thing as Brooklyn Heights, or Cobble Hill, or Boerum Hill, or Fort Greene, or any of the other residential neighborhoods that abut Downtown. And it most especially should not be located next to an elementary school.

  • Brooklynite

    BH resident you are assuming that people would not care if it was in a different neighborhood next to a school, but that is not what anyone on here has said. this blog is about brooklyn heights and the issues of the neighborhood. having sex offenders that close to a school is a problem for any neighborhood. you seem to fail to realize that it is a natural reaction for people to act more strongly to issues that hit closer to home.

  • skunky

    everyone needs take a deep breath and chill

    while I understand that parents are understandably protective of their children, this incident should REASSURE them about the nature of the facility at Pierrepont Plaza. The guy was apprehended, and there was easily enough manpower to take the guy down. Now if he had gotten away, I could see the extreme reaction.

    The whole point here is that while there are bad people walking around every day, they are extremely unlikely to hang around outside of their PROBATION OFFICE looking for kids to bugger. It just doesn’t make any sense. It’s like saying I don’t want a police station in my neighborhood because they deal with criminals too!

    Move out of NYC or into a gated community if you want to have your kids live in isolation. Otherwise learn to deal with stuff like this.

  • bornhere

    I’m not sure how I feel about this whole issue; but I find it interesting, in a kind of socio-historic (I made that up) kind of way, that, when I was a Friends student when the school was on Schermerhorn Street, neither my parents, the faculty, nor anyone else ever voiced concern about 300 kids, aged 6-18, spending their day in a building right next door to a criminal court or across the street from a detention facility (talk about areas fraught with potential mayhem). And I also can’t recall a single unhappy incident because of location, location, location. Just saying.

  • lulu

    Skunky,

    Just to correct one mistake in what you wrote– the guy was not caught. He evaded the guards, and there is a warrant for his arrest now.

    Furthermore, the Judge and Mr. Garappolo stood in front of 300 parents this summer, assuring them that there was NEVER an incident in front of the facilities in 30 years in Brooklyn Heights, and that convicted sex offenders and pedophiles would not be seen in this facility. They lied.

    Why don’t you go back to your gated community, while responsible parents who were willing to give the situation a fair chance deal with the liars in power who said they would keep our children safe.

  • LAS

    Lets be honest, NYC is amazing; the job opportunities, 24-7 public transportation, easy access to world class arts, museums, entertainment, restaurants, book stores, music, theater, opera, nightlife, shopping, parks, etc….

    The downside is the crime and violence makes it a dangerous place to live. It’s a trade off. This is why families with young children often move to the suburbs until their kids are older.

  • BH resident

    When people talk about what their property taxes should get them, and refer to this as “decent neighborhood” in which no such facilities should exist, it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that some folks think that this is an enclave that deserves better treatment because it houses the affluent.

    If I have misinterpreted what folks have said, and if this is not what they mean, I apologize.

  • bhmom

    LAS, thi is really a superficial thing to say and merely parrots what has already been said by some other people who are not thinking through the details of this situation. Would you have the same response if, say, a dangerous,violent criminal moved right next door to you (or slept on your doorstep), or if your kids (if you have any) were mugged or assaulted while walking through the neighborhood? Would you say, well this is the obvious trade-off of living among all the other great stuff in this city?

  • nancy

    I don’t see this as much different than Megan’s Law, and all the other sex offender laws enacted throughout the country. I also think that back when Friends was on Schermahorn Street, we didn’t have all the knowledge available to us that we do now.
    An BH resident:
    Apology accepted. Like I said before, not everyone here is rich and/or works for a hedge fund. Can’t even say Wall Street anymore.

  • http://www.myspace.com/billyreno Billy Reno

    Thank Buddha my kids go to a nice, safe public school!