Recovering from a Home Burglary
I live in an ungentrified, densely-populated, urban neighborhood; some snobby upper-middle people might even call my neighborhood a ghetto. For me, it's where I've always wanted to live: an undeveloped neighborhood where class wasn't an issue. I had previously envied those who moved into Soho when it was rows of slaughter houses and Williamsburg when there was gang violence on the streets. Within many artist sub-cultures in NYC, to live in an ungentrified urban development was a mark of honor and courage among artists/activists like myself. It's one thing to say that you're not bourgeois, but to live among the more disenfranchised is another.
As an artist/activist whose heroines and heroes have always been the likes of Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, Maya Angelou, and Malcolm X, I have always known in my heart that I had to live in a neighborhood like one that I do. I have dedicated my life to fighting classism, racism, sexism, and now ableism, (which is discrimination against people with disabilities). It is easy to fight classism from afar, from an ivory tower or from an upper-middle to middle class neighborhoods where I have lived most of my life. Many intellectuals can talk the talk, but cannot walk the walk. So here I am. I am a product of privilege in certain ways; I spent my last years of high school in an upper-middle class neighborhood, contemplating Kant and Plato which led to my liberal enlightenment. Contemplating Kant, despite their being dead white men with Euro-centric views of the universe, can instill a great sense of duty and social responsibility. If there is any one thing responsible for my poverty, it is my liberal education that has propelled my quest for social justice in mental health among many other social issues. I am imbued with upper-middle class liberal tastes. However, with some of the issues in my family, I was in certain ways deprived of things I can't quite say in this blog.
I wanted to move into this neighborhoods, where there are drug dealers and not-so-kind people on the streets. I chose this despite all my other choices so I should not lament. But lately, I have questioning my decision to buy my condo in this neighborhood and here's why:
Lately, my neighborhood has been under siege, making national headlines with a brutal shooting of 5 cops and a story that reads like a script out of an episode of Law and Order. In pursuit of the criminals, the police deployed the SWAT Team and a police helicopter, which hovered directly over our building at 5:30am in the morning on July 16, 2009. The sound of it was so surreal, had someone told me that it was UFO landing on top of our building I would likely have believed them. I literally woke up believing that I had dreamt the strange loud noise and fell immediately back to sleep. This happened less than 2 blocks from my home on July 16, 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/nyregion/17jersey.html?scp=1&sq=reed%20street%20jersey%20city&st=cse
One month later, my home was burglarized while I was asleep. It's been crazy ever since. I have to finish writing this later, but I think I have to go to sleep. But below are the events that happened.
I woke up around noon on August 11, 2009 to find the window fan in one of the 2 windows in my office removed and placed in a chair next to the window. One of the last things I had done prior to going to bed at 3 am was turn off the window fan so I was immediately alarmed and knew that this was an indication that something was seriously wrong. I walked into my dining and living room area and discovered that my 2 laptops and digital camera were gone. My immediate impulse was to knock on some of the doors on my floor to ask if anyone had seen or heard anything, but I could not find my bag, which contained my house keys. I walked throughout my home, searching in the usual places I stored my bag, but it was nowhere to be found. I frantically continued to search for my bag, which also contained my cellphone, wallet, cash and credit cards, in disbelief. I then called the police, my sister and Vanessa, the superintendent of our building. I began to search my apartment for other missing items and clues while still in a mild state of shock and disbelief. At approximately 12:20pm, Officer Howlett came and took my police report.
My apartment is on the 5th floor and the window, which appeared to be the point of entry, is not on a fire escape so the point of entry being that window seemed very implausible. But it did certainly appear that way. I wondered if the perpetrator might have entered through the roof and somehow accessed the window via the roof so I asked Officer Howlett if we should perhaps investigate the roof. I asked him to please take a look at the roof, which is only accessible by key. The door to the roof, if not opened with a key, sounds siren so I cleared roof access with Vanessa. I also asked her if there was anyone else who had roof keys and she said no. The officer and I went on the roof and found nothing unusual. The only things I noticed in the roof area directly above the window, were DirectTV Satellite Dishes installed. The officer said this was not significant in any way. He seemed skeptical that the window was the point of entry for the burglar to enter my apartment. The window was not adjacent to any other structures that could have given the burglar access to this window at such a dangerous height of 5 flights. He asked me if anyone had keys to my apartment and if my door had been open when I discovered the burglary. I told him that only my superintendent had the keys and that the door was slightly ajar when I first discovered the burglary as if the intruder left using my front door. He asked me questions that seemed to imply that it was possible that the perpetrator somehow used the front door as access and set up the scene to appear as if the window was used to as the point of entry. To this day, I do not have any solid evidence to establish the exact point of entry.
Later that evening when a neighbor, Ben, came over to help me replace the lock to my door, he noticed a large palm print on the outside ledge of the window. So I called the police again to request that they come and take the prints as evidence. Officers Bravo and Montanez came, looked at the palm print and said that the surface of the ledge was not a good surface to take fingerprints from and that the likelihood of such evidence being admissible in court was slim. I think if I recall correctly they also said that palm prints are not taken for criminal records, only fingerprints are taken for arrested individuals.
Fast forward to my return from Arizona on Sept 17. On Sept 18, there was another burglary in my building. Scary as shit and everyone is on the edge.
As an artist/activist whose heroines and heroes have always been the likes of Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, Maya Angelou, and Malcolm X, I have always known in my heart that I had to live in a neighborhood like one that I do. I have dedicated my life to fighting classism, racism, sexism, and now ableism, (which is discrimination against people with disabilities). It is easy to fight classism from afar, from an ivory tower or from an upper-middle to middle class neighborhoods where I have lived most of my life. Many intellectuals can talk the talk, but cannot walk the walk. So here I am. I am a product of privilege in certain ways; I spent my last years of high school in an upper-middle class neighborhood, contemplating Kant and Plato which led to my liberal enlightenment. Contemplating Kant, despite their being dead white men with Euro-centric views of the universe, can instill a great sense of duty and social responsibility. If there is any one thing responsible for my poverty, it is my liberal education that has propelled my quest for social justice in mental health among many other social issues. I am imbued with upper-middle class liberal tastes. However, with some of the issues in my family, I was in certain ways deprived of things I can't quite say in this blog.
I wanted to move into this neighborhoods, where there are drug dealers and not-so-kind people on the streets. I chose this despite all my other choices so I should not lament. But lately, I have questioning my decision to buy my condo in this neighborhood and here's why:
Lately, my neighborhood has been under siege, making national headlines with a brutal shooting of 5 cops and a story that reads like a script out of an episode of Law and Order. In pursuit of the criminals, the police deployed the SWAT Team and a police helicopter, which hovered directly over our building at 5:30am in the morning on July 16, 2009. The sound of it was so surreal, had someone told me that it was UFO landing on top of our building I would likely have believed them. I literally woke up believing that I had dreamt the strange loud noise and fell immediately back to sleep. This happened less than 2 blocks from my home on July 16, 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/nyregion/17jersey.html?scp=1&sq=reed%20street%20jersey%20city&st=cse
One month later, my home was burglarized while I was asleep. It's been crazy ever since. I have to finish writing this later, but I think I have to go to sleep. But below are the events that happened.
I woke up around noon on August 11, 2009 to find the window fan in one of the 2 windows in my office removed and placed in a chair next to the window. One of the last things I had done prior to going to bed at 3 am was turn off the window fan so I was immediately alarmed and knew that this was an indication that something was seriously wrong. I walked into my dining and living room area and discovered that my 2 laptops and digital camera were gone. My immediate impulse was to knock on some of the doors on my floor to ask if anyone had seen or heard anything, but I could not find my bag, which contained my house keys. I walked throughout my home, searching in the usual places I stored my bag, but it was nowhere to be found. I frantically continued to search for my bag, which also contained my cellphone, wallet, cash and credit cards, in disbelief. I then called the police, my sister and Vanessa, the superintendent of our building. I began to search my apartment for other missing items and clues while still in a mild state of shock and disbelief. At approximately 12:20pm, Officer Howlett came and took my police report.
My apartment is on the 5th floor and the window, which appeared to be the point of entry, is not on a fire escape so the point of entry being that window seemed very implausible. But it did certainly appear that way. I wondered if the perpetrator might have entered through the roof and somehow accessed the window via the roof so I asked Officer Howlett if we should perhaps investigate the roof. I asked him to please take a look at the roof, which is only accessible by key. The door to the roof, if not opened with a key, sounds siren so I cleared roof access with Vanessa. I also asked her if there was anyone else who had roof keys and she said no. The officer and I went on the roof and found nothing unusual. The only things I noticed in the roof area directly above the window, were DirectTV Satellite Dishes installed. The officer said this was not significant in any way. He seemed skeptical that the window was the point of entry for the burglar to enter my apartment. The window was not adjacent to any other structures that could have given the burglar access to this window at such a dangerous height of 5 flights. He asked me if anyone had keys to my apartment and if my door had been open when I discovered the burglary. I told him that only my superintendent had the keys and that the door was slightly ajar when I first discovered the burglary as if the intruder left using my front door. He asked me questions that seemed to imply that it was possible that the perpetrator somehow used the front door as access and set up the scene to appear as if the window was used to as the point of entry. To this day, I do not have any solid evidence to establish the exact point of entry.
Later that evening when a neighbor, Ben, came over to help me replace the lock to my door, he noticed a large palm print on the outside ledge of the window. So I called the police again to request that they come and take the prints as evidence. Officers Bravo and Montanez came, looked at the palm print and said that the surface of the ledge was not a good surface to take fingerprints from and that the likelihood of such evidence being admissible in court was slim. I think if I recall correctly they also said that palm prints are not taken for criminal records, only fingerprints are taken for arrested individuals.
Fast forward to my return from Arizona on Sept 17. On Sept 18, there was another burglary in my building. Scary as shit and everyone is on the edge.
posted by Pearl Ji-hyon Park at
1:13 AM
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