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Hurricane Sandy's darker side: Looting and other crime

Residents say the Rockaways is a family friendly place. But Hurricane Sandy's aftereffects are making the area more dangerous, with looting and robberies, despite an increased police presence.

Looting, robberies in Sandy's darkness Residents in powerless areas of New York witness crimes, but can't do much about it.Generators stolen

The last bus from Brooklyn rolled into the Belle Harborneighborhood of the Rockaways, Queens, on Friday evening just before 6 p.m., as darkness slipped quickly over the beach-town streets, obscuring curbside piles of discarded furniture and electronics.

No lights powered on inside the modest one and two-story houses, as they haven't for the past five nights, sinceHurricane Sandy – a post-tropical cyclone with 80 mile-per-hour winds – struck this small peninsula and the greater New York City area and New Jersey on Monday, knocking out power for 3.5 million homes and businesses.

When the bus stopped, the 11 passengers scuttled out and set off for home, without lingering on the normally commercial street. Residents describe the Rockaways as a family friendly place, with certain pockets of rough neighborhoods.

But some people say Sandy's aftereffect of darkness is making the area more dangerous, resulting in looting and at-home robberies, despite an increased police presence.

“I saw this guy stealing televisions from a nursing home right on the boardwalk on Tuesday, and the workers were chasing him up the street,” said Ben Cooper, who lives in Belle Harbor. “Every time I saw him he had a different TV.”

IN PICTURES: Sandy: Chronicle of an unrelenting storm

Mr. Cooper and a few friends stood talking on his house's porch. It was about 7:45 p.m. and they were the only people around. The ocean breeze was getting colder and stronger. He held his flashlight and looked out onto the street, which was still covered with sand.

“There's no lights, there's no cameras, there's no alarms, there's no nothing. It's kind of scary, you know?” he said.

His neighbor, Talentin Gutierez showed a reporter a borrowed generator, worth about $2,000. His was robbed the other day. Tonight, he will sleep in his car – wrecked from water damage – to guard the generator.

An hour later, a New York City Police Department officer looked on as four National Guards unloaded cases of bottled water and ready-to-eat emergency food packs outside a recently launched community center half a block away.

Looting and robberies have been up across all of New York City since Sandy hit, said the officer.

In Far Rockaway Peninsula, 15 people were charged with looting businesses on Wednesday. Reported arrests in Manhattan, Coney Island, Brooklyn, and Staten Island for looting at businesses like supermarkets and sneaker stores totaled 20 last week.

An NYPD spokesperson said in a phone interview that a team is currently investigating how the blackout for swaths of the city has impacted looting and robbery rates in New York City.

In New Jersey, the Monmouth County prosecutor was quoted as saying that police made 25 arrests for burglaries and looting incidents. But Governor Chris Christie has said that there is no evidence of widespread looting in the state.

Back in the Rockaways, about 20 blocks away from Belle Harbor, Candice Dugar waited in line for soup nearby a well-lit police precinct. She said she heard about a break-in at a sneaker store, Lee's, and a local convenience store nearby a group of public housing projects.

Melvin Flemings said a group of men looted a liquor store near the police precinct in thisneighborhood, Rockaway Park, and are now selling the alcohol on the beach.

Not everyone in the neighborhood has heard of looting and robberies since Sandy.

“I haven't heard anything, but if they are taking from the grocery stores, it's because they need it,” said Rebecca Kelly talking as she ate a cup of soup. “There's no grocery stores open.”

The community center, one of several that have popped up since Sandy, was one of the few places lit as the night thickened and the streets cleared of people. It's powered by solar panels from a Greenpeace truck, which arrived Thursday with groups of volunteers and former Occupy Wall Street demonstrators.

Two local women helped out inside the center, passing out food and clothing. They waited until after 10 p.m. for friends to accompany them on their 5 minute walk home. They are afraid of more than just petty crime, a concern they never had before they lost electricity.

One older woman, who asked only to be identified by her first name, Rosemary, said someone tried to break into her house early Tuesday morning when she was asleep. Today, she found her front door frame ripped off.

“Everything is dark. People take advantage of that factor. It's only normal. It's not only here,” she said.

Beatrice Loperfito witnessed two separate attempted home robberies last night. “I heard them breaking windows and I went out with my flashlight. These guys ran and the cops came.”

She said she is more worried, though, about the two convicted rapists living on her block.

“I have to protect myself. I have nothing else to give but myself. Everything else is all gone,” she explained.

The women and the rest of the volunteers eventually left and the lingering community center volunteers locked its doors close to 11 p.m., leaving bread and water outside.

Inside, the roaming police cars' blue and red beams reflected through the center's glass doors and onto a wall throughout the night.

In the morning, sunlight faded in slowly at 7 a.m. On the main drag in Belle Harbor, small groups of people huddled, waiting for express buses to Brooklyn and Queens.

IN PICTURES: Sandy: Chronicle of an unrelenting storm

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Read this story at csmonitor.com

Another storm headed toward weather-beaten NY, NJ

NEW YORK (AP) — Just what New York and New Jersey need after the devastation ofSuperstorm Sandy — More wind.

The National Weather Service said an offshore storm that could pack gusts up to 55 mph is in Wednesday's forecast for the New York metropolitan area and the New Jersey coastline.

Meteorologist Joe Pollina said the storm looks like a classic Nor'easter, coming up along the Atlantic coast. He said it will not be nearly as strong as Sandy but could compound the damage left by last week's superstorm.

The weather service said the strongest winds will likely hit eastern Long Island.

Palestinian leader violates taboo on refugees

Palestinians march during a protest against president Mahmoud Abbas in the Jabaliya Refugee Camp, northern Gaza Strip Saturday, Nov. 3, 2012. Gazans protested against Abbas' remarks at an Israeli television that suggested millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants would not be able to return to the places they fled, or were forced to flee, during the fighting surrounding Israel's creation in 1948. The posters read: "traitor - you represent nobody but yourself."(AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Palestinian president has set off a strident debate by shattering a once-inviolable taboo, publicly suggesting his people would have to relinquish claims to ancestral homes in Israel.

Mahmoud Abbas' comments on the refugee issue, made in an interview on Israeli TV over the weekend, triggered hot responses from Palestinians and Israelis alike.

In Israel, it suddenly put the long-sidelined issue of peace talks back in the Israeli public's consciousness ahead of parliamentary elections.

Palestinians have maintained for six decades that Arabs who either fled or were expelled from their homes during the fighting that followed Israel's 1948 creation, as well as all their descendants, all have the right to reclaim former properties in what is now Israel.

Israel says a mass return of these people, believed to number some 5 million, would spell the end of Israel as the Jewish state. Also, Israel rejects the concept of a legal "right of return."

In the interview, Abbas was asked about his birthplace of Safed — now a town in northern Israel. He told the interviewer that while he would like to visit, he doesn't claim the right to live there.

"I am a refugee, but I am living in Ramallah (in the West Bank). I believe that the West Bank and Gaza is Palestine. And the other parts is Israel," Abbas said in English. "I want to see Safed. It is my right to see it, but not to live there," he said.

The comments were widely seen as an acknowledgment that return of all the refugees would be impossible. While Palestinian officials privately acknowledge that, they have been reluctant to say so in public.

His adviser, Nimr Hammad, said Abbas was being "realistic."

"He knows he can't bring back 5.5 million Palestinian refugees to Israel," Hammad said.

Some West Bank Palestinians were disappointed that their leader had made an overture to Israel without receiving any gestures in exchange.

"President Abbas is a failure," said Iyad Alotol, a government employee in Ramallah. "He is ceding the right of return without getting anything from the Israelis. He is a man who makes concessions for free."

Abbas, an outspoken proponent of a diplomatic solution with Israel, has little to show for his efforts. He has seen his popularity steadily decline in the West Bank, and in 2007, he lost control of the Gaza Strip to the rival Islamic militant Hamas.

Condemnation of Abbas predictably was harsh in Gaza. Hamas rejects negotiations and believe only violence will persuade Israel to give up captured territory.

Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh termed Abbas' remarks "extremely dangerous." At demonstrations in Gaza on Saturday, some protesters burned posters of a smiling Abbas, and others emblazoned the word "traitor" on posters of the Palestinian leader.

In Israel, Abbas' comments were the talk of the town on Sunday, as officials debated how serious Abbas was.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his Cabinet reacted coolly, even mistrustfully, to Abbas' remarks. Israeli moderates warned against missing a chance to negotiate with a person they consider a partner for peacemaking.

The Abbas interview appeared to be aimed at soothing Israeli concerns before he goes to the United Nations later this month in hopes of winning "nonmember state" observer status for a Palestinian state inside the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in 1967.

Israel opposes the U.N. bid, accusing Abbas of trying to sidestep the negotiating process. It says the borders of a Palestinian state can be determined only through direct negotiations.

"I think President Abbas wanted to convey a message of assurance to the Israelis ahead of their elections, that he wants to have a state within the 1967 borders and doesn't seek war or to delegitimize Israel," said Palestinian analyst Bassem Zbaidi. "He told them, I'm not going to the U.N. to besiege you, on the contrary, I'm going to make peace with you."

Abbas' remarks suddenly returned the moribund state of peacemaking to the center of Israeli political discourse. With peace efforts frozen for the past four years, Israeli leaders have been preoccupied with Iran's suspect nuclear program and local economic issues, and the Palestinian issue has not been a major factor in the campaign for Jan. 22 parliamentary elections.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a former prime minister who has been closely involved in peace efforts over the past two decades, said Palestinians have assured Israeli counterparts that they would be willing to agree to this compromise on the refugee issue.

"We can't say that we don't have a partner for peacemaking. Abu Mazen has expressed willingness to forfeit the 'right of return' in closed talks, too," Barak said, using Abbas' nickname.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn't impressed, noting that Abbas subsequently backtracked in an interview with an Egyptian TV station. "No one can forfeit the right of return," Abbas told Egypt's Al-Hayyat TV on Saturday.

"This just proves how important direct, unconditional negotiations are," Netanyahu told his Cabinet. "Only in direct negotiations is it possible to find out what the real positions are."

Israel's ultranationalist foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, accused Abbas of trying to tilt the results of Israel's Jan. 22 election.

"He is meddling on behalf of the (Israeli) left ... which represents Palestinian interests," he told Army Radio, noting that the Palestinian president takes a much harder line against Israel when speaking to his people in Arabic.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who made a peace proposal to Abbas in 2008, issued a harsh statement accusing Netanyahu of missing a critical opportunity to pursue peace.

"This policy toward the only partner possible for peace between us and the Palestinians is irresponsible and can damage the most vital Israeli interests," Olmert said. He said the Abbas interview "proves to the Israeli public that there is someone to speak to and things to discuss with the goal of solving this bloody conflict."

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Additional reporting from Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank.

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