Police: 'We're Not the Wild West'

Update: Chief Gregory Camp has issued an open letter to the public this morning to assure citizens of their safety. Read his letter here.

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Each day this week, a small group of Barnhart area neighbors quietly wait for the bus to pick up their children on the very same corner where five or so gunshots were fired early Sunday morning. They don’t discuss this in front of the young kids.

However residents have been much more vocal online where their kids aren’t listening. From the 10591 group to Patch’s Facebook page and Patch itself, people are commenting, many of them bashing Sleepy Hollow police, Sleepy Hollow administration, and Sleepy Hollow itself.

There’s an overriding slant surfacing that things are “worse” here than sister village Tarrytown, and that things are worse now than in the past. People are talking about coming to the next board meeting and calling for their own community meeting.

Sleepy Hollow Police Chief Gregory Camp, however, feels he sees no pattern of escalating violence and wants to assure citizens that the force is doing all they can. “We will continue to patrol, investigate and intercede where necessary.”

NY City-Data.com stats shown in the attached chart show Sleepy Hollow as neck-to-neck with Tarrytown in their crime index. 

“Overall, I do not see a drastic increase in violent crime,” he said. “Bad things occur from time to time and good people rise to make things better."

Off the top of his head, he did recount a list of sporadic gun incidents in his decades-long tenure on the force:

• Most notably: A double homicide and then one suicide in a Valley Street bakery in 2000.
• The so-called “Cousin Vinny” shooting in 2008 in front of 222 Beekman, what is now the Moon River Grill. “It’s a cold case,” he said, “we never found the shooter.” One man was shot multiple times; two men fled one August night.
• One exceptional one, with no guns: At 87 Cortlandt about 10 years there, there was the dramatic lover’s quarrel gone wrong, with a man slitting a woman’s throat and then jumping to his death off a building.
• There was gunfire once on Cortlandt, he said, around 20 years and no one was shot though he said it involved an automatic weapon.
• There was a bar on the corner of Cortlandt and College that had gunshot holes in its window about 25 years ago.
• Going way back: a homicide with a shotgun on Gory Brook Road that’s still unsolved 35 years later.

“There's no pattern here that we're turning into the Wild West," Camp said. He also said that one man with a gun does not constitute a gun fight.

Budget talks this year are already wrenching, with the Mayor’s proposed budget coming in at upwards of an 8 percent tax hike. The size of the police force is always an issue.

“We work under budget constraints and can only put so many people out there," Camp said. "You want to see the mayor’s 8 percent tax hike? Then, who are we going to cut? I don’t want to lose people. We need more people.”

The shooting case is still under investigation and Camp said he can’t offer up any more information on the men’s conditions or more details from that night for various reasons from legal issues to safety concerns.

He encourages citizens who have any information regarding the case to come forward, even anonymously, by calling 914-631-0800.

There have been rumors of retaliation between the parties to the violent altercation which Camp said he could not address. He said more details would come out in court. Alleged shooter Sean Ward is supposed to make a first appearance on Monday. (He didn't show last week, due to his own injuries.)

As far as rumors circulating about the extent of these injuries or the past record of one of the victims, “I can’t confirm or deny," Camp said.

by the Building Department as a structure deemed unsafe. The police themselves, said Camp, “can’t shut the place down. Then I’m putting the village on liability. We get sued and who’s going to pay.”

Instead, when there’s an issue with a bar, police have to go through the proper channels – the building department, the State Liquor Authority. Up until lately, he said, the “Liquor Authority’s been unreceptive.”

What is now called Match Bar had five SLA referrals accrued last year. The agency coincidentally scheduled a hearing right before Sunday’s incident, Camp said.

Then the Building Department stepped in as well. “I’m thankful Sean [McCarthy, inspector] was able to get down there and do something about it,” Camp said.

“We’re not paid off, we’re not scared. We have to work within the law," Camp said. "We have to take the heat and hope sometimes some other agencies will listen and can help us.”

As far as the future of Match or bars to come? “My hope is no business on that corner can serve alcoholic beverages.”

Camp said liquor licenses often end up outside the power of the village. Someone denied a Certificate of Occupancy to serve alcohol here can still go ahead and apply to the SLA. “And they don’t care because they’re getting their money.” 

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