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Co-op City

Private Security Force

Now called the Public Safety Department

Crime and Corruption

In the summer of 1973 security guard Louis Torres, 25, allegedly struck a youth with a blackjack or walkie talkie after being taunted by a group of youngsters while responding to a call. He was arrested in November of that year. The youth spent about two months at Jacobi Hospital.

Torres was released on his own recognizance after being indicted, and was allowed to continue his security duties pending the trial.

City News, November 15, 1973

Meat theft

On December 13, 1973, Security officers Thomas Genovese and Joseph Benny were arrested in connection with the theft, on September 11 of that year, of several hundred dolars worth of meat from the Blue Ribbon (kosher) Butcher on Dreiser Loop, after responding to a burglary call. Co-op City Times, December 15, 1973; City News, December 20, 1973; followup story on Feb 21, 1974

Untimely death of George Marks

In the late spring of 1976, Inner City Electronics, in the lower level plaza of the Dreiser Loop shopping center, had installed pinball machines, and had become something of teen hangout. (Pinball machines had technically been illegal in New York City until that time, dating back to Mayor LaGuardia, who had spoken of children stealing nickels from their mothers' purses to play the machines.) Rabbi Solomon I. Berl of adjoining Young Israel of Co-op City and other merchants called for the removal of the machines. In a letter published in the City News, June 10, 1976 he wrote "The riffraff from the entire community has made the Plaza Level a hangout for beer parties, gambling, bottle-throwing and card parties. ... Youngsters who never played machines are being 'sucked in' and upon becoming addicted to it would probably resort to mugging to acquire the funds to feed the habit. ... It is most urgent that immediate action be taken as each evening attracts more and more of these misguided youngsters."

Immediate action was taken. On Wednesday afternoon, June 9, George Marks, 20, of Grace Avenue, was part of a group of unruly youthts ordered to disperse from Inner City Electronics.

Security Officer Walter Wimmer got into a shoving match with Marks, who then ran up to the upper level, with Wimmer in pursuit.

Patrolmen Joseph Vespa and Philip McCardle and Sergeant Anthony Faenza responded in a security car, and along with Lieutenant Bennie Schwall, arrested Marks.

While Marks was in the patrol car with those officers, with his hands cuffed behind his back, he was shot through the heart and lung by Schwall, and died instantly. City News, June 17, 1976

Schwall was indicted in August of that year on manslaughter charges. I have been unable to find the resolution to that charge. That month, Marjorie Marks, George's mother, announced through her attorney, Abraham Goldner, that she would be bringing suit against the Riverbay Corporation.

In a private telephone conversation in with Mr. Goldner in 1991, when I was looking to retain a lawyer for a similar lawsuit against Riverbay Corporation for Security misconduct, Mr. Goldner was close-mouthed but indicated a settlement had been reached which tended to satisfy justice. I suspect that this means that Mrs. Marks' settlement, like my own, contained a gag clause.

In a follow-up story in the City News, August 26, 1976 a check of records showed that about 10 percent of the men and women employed on the Co-op Security force since Co-op City started had been indicted for major crimes.

Security Disarmed

The City News reported on September 16, 1976 that Charles Rosen, then chairman of the Riverbay Board of Directors, had disarmed the Security officers to assure that they not do the job of the police, saying "The security department is not a Police Department; it is a crime-deterrent department.

"The Security guards have no police training."

Security Rearmed

In a much less prominent story on March 24, 1977, the City News reported that Security was to be re-armed. Larry Dolnick, then president of the Riverbay board, said that officers with the rank of sergeant or higher would be allowed to carry guns on the job, to cope with an increasing incidence of criminals using guns in the community in then-recent weeks.

As of Thanksgiving 1990, Security officers were armed and generally wore ballistic vests.

Right to strike against public safety

Security Force strikes include 1985. Link or more detail needed here -- suggestions welcome

Ferrer v. Riverbay: Rape Victim's Suicide by Reason of Police Verbal Abuse

See Attorneys Queller and Fisher's page on Notes and Decisions for details about this case, 214 A.D.2d 312; 624 N.Y.S.2d 425 which is, as noted in the New York Law Journal, April 6, 1995:

an action involving the suicide of a 12-year old rape victim, the Court denied the defendant's cross-motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, finding issues of fact were presented as to whether the defendant had voluntarily assumed a duty to care for or control the infant decedent but carried out that duty negligently.
The terse decision reveals that after learning of the incident, the officers isolated the girl, refused her request to call her mother, and verbally abused her until she agreed to press charges. They then left her unattended, at which point she jumped [fell] from a window balcony. Whether it was reasonably foreseeable to the defendant officers, under the circumstances, that the girl would commit suicide was held to constitute an issue for the jury.

(As of 2003, that page is no longer found on the Queller, Fisher, Dienst, Serrins, Washor & Kool, LLP site.)

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