FIRST REPORT: 12:40PM EST: A burglar posing as a janitor in a Williamsburg Girls Yeshiva, has just been nabbed by Williamsburg Shomrim, YWN has learned.
Shomrim tell YWN that their dispatcher had received phone calls on Thursday morning stating that an African American male in his mid 40’s was seen in the classrooms as school was starting for the day – holding a broom and a bunch of garbage bags. Upon the arrival of Shomrim the man had fled, but the video footage said it all.
The film showed the man entering the building along with the children in the morning, and somehow managed to get a broom and enter a classroom – pretending to be cleaning the floors. What he was really doing was stealing pocketbooks belonging to the teachers.
A photo of the man was printed out and distributed to Shomrim units, and units were on patrol this morning keeping an eye out for him. Sure enough, he was spotted near another Yeshiva building on Friday morning walking around suspiciously.
The NYPD Anti-Crime Units were called, and together with Shomrim apprehended the man, and placed him under arrest.
A police source tells YWN that the man had currently been out on bail for burglary in Manhattan, and has an extensive “rap-sheet” for various crimes.
Although the Shomrim Units must be publicly commended for a job-well-done, the question must still be asked: How secure are Yeshiva facilities, that in a post 9/11 era an African American male was able to walk into a Jewish girls school in broad daylight without being stopped?
(Yehuda Drudgestein – YWN / YW-112)
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7 Responses
Solution? PHOTO IDS to be worn by all employees of schools on their breast pocket.
After people posing as nurses ‘stole’ newborn infants (actually the mothers gave them their babies, thinking it was a nurse who was returning their newborn to the nursery), security measures such as PHOTO ID’s for the nurse as well as wrist/leg activated bands for the newborns became a standard in most hospitals.
In a small school, where there is just one handiman/janitor whom EVERYONE knows, that’s fine. But in a larger school where unions hire cleaning crews, etc, Photo ids hanging off the breast pocket seem easy enough to implement.
If it is the regular cleaning crew, day in, day out, a poster of everyone’s photo should be placed in a prominent place in the school. If someone doesn’t fit the bill, an alert should be sounded. It’s easy enough for anyone to memorize faces of their favorite basketball heroes, this challenge should be equal.
I’ll bet he would have had a hard time getting into a Lakewood girls’ High School!
In public schools they require fingerprinting and background checks.
charvona – that would not matter… he did not work there… so even if fingerprints were required he still would not have been printed.
People need to be on guard and get to KNOW the people who work in your schools. When I worked at a preschool all the kids new the janitors by name and would say hello to them as we passed one of them in the halls. Even the kids would have seen something up with a new guy even just to go up and ask their name… (And this was NOT a small school this was a school of about 900 kids!!!!!!
another job well done by the Williamsburg Shomrim Patrol, keep it up!! and thanks for the hard work.
I’d be more worried about a terrorist who dressed in Yehsivish/Chasiddic garb. How many places would stop someone that looks the part?
In general the jewish schools dont have enough security and its an issue that needs to be addressed before something drastic happens chas veshalom