NYPD on West 12th Road....

I am sure by now many of you have heard that there was a rather large police presence at the end of West 12th Road earlier this morning.

What occurred was that shortly before 10:00 a.m., an individual working for one of the local propane tank distributors parked his truck on Cross Bay Boulevard and used a hand truck to make a delivery to one of the residence at the end of the block.  Apparently, he was not comfortable maneuvering his truck down the narrow street.

One of our neighbors observed the individual exiting the residence with a propane tank on a hand truck and walking up the block.  Not seeing a delivery truck on the street the neighbor thought the matter highly irregular and called the police to check it out.

Shortly after 10:00 a.m., 3 police squad cars, an unmarked car, two police vans and a lone officer on an NYPD scooter responded to the bay end of West 12th Road.  By this time the propane delivery individual had departed the block.

It took a few minutes to sort everything out but once the situation was clear to the responding police staff and that all was well the responding police officers and all their vehicles departed West 12th Road.

It is interesting to note that our neighbor apologized to several of the responding police staff for misconstruing the situation and requesting a police response and was assured that there was nothing to be embarrassed about and that calling the police when you feel something is amiss is the "right thing to do."

The lone exception was a responding Sergeant who felt it necessary to chastise our neighbor by stating, "You wasted our time...we are risking our lives responding here with guns drawn...someone could have been hurt."

As previously stated, 99% of the responding police were both courteous and professional in their interaction with our neighbor, assuring her that she had done the right thing.

Perhaps the lone sourpuss Sergeant has not seen the widely played media ads saturating our city, to wit:  "If you see something say something!"

Finally, on behalf of all the residents of West 12th Road here in Broad Channel we would like to extend our sincere appreciation and heartfelt thanks to our alert neighbor for watching out for her friends and neighbors.