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CommuNIty uPDAtE Infections as of April 21
3,940
Infections as of April 14 3,889
$1.00
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Vol. 32 No. 17
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Former L.B. man charged with murder officials. Nassau County police captured the suspect in Hempstead after a Updated at 11:15 a.m. Wednesday. massive search Tuesday afternoon. A 30-year-old “I want make this Hempstead man, message loud and Gabriel DeWitt Wilclear,” Nassau District son, was charged with Attor ney Madeline one count of secondSingas said at a degree murder and Wednesday-morning four counts of news conference. “If attempted murder you engage in this Wednesday after he behavior in Nassau allegedly entered the County, be prepared to Gabriel DeWitt Wilson face the full force of West Hempstead Stop & Shop the day before the law.” and started shooting employees in At press time, police were still the manager’s office, according to Continued on page 4
By NAkEEm GRANt and sCott BRINtoN ngrant@liherald.com, sbrinton@liherald.com
Sue Grieco/Herald
NAssAu CouNty PolICE Commissioner Patrick Ryder speaking outside the Stop & Shop Tuesday.
PBA calls for vote of ‘no confidence’ in new top cop By JAmEs BERNstEIN jbernstein@liherald.com
In a stunning announcement at a City Council meeting Tuesday night, the president of the Long Beach Police Benevolent Association said he would ask his members on Thursday to take a vote of “no confidence” in the city’s new police commissioner, Ron Walsh. PBA President Brian Wells denounced Walsh’s new geographic policing plan, saying, “It is a complete redeployment of the most basic police services the public receives, and it was not even hinted at in the official police reform plan.”
Walsh, a high-ranking veteran of the Nassau County Police Department who became Long Beach’s police commissioner in February, has said that major changes would be in store for the 66-member department. Among them was a pilot program that calls for assigning officers to posts on a longer-term basis and seeing to it that they become more involved in the neighborhoods they patrol. It is unclear whether the Long Beach PBA has ever considered a vote of no confidence in a police commissioner. The city and the PBA are in the midst of prolonged negotiations for a new contract.
I
take very seriously a vote of no confidence.
DoNNA GAyDEN City manager
Wells said a week ago that Walsh’s plan was an “insult” to the department, because it assumed that officers were not engaging with the community. Relations between Walsh and the PBA have been contentious from the beginning. Walsh has been seen by the police as an outsider. At the virtual council meeting, Wells said that the imple-
mentation of Walsh’s plan would leave large areas of the city under-policed, and one neighborhood, North Park, over-policed. In his statement to the council, Wells added, “The PBA is not opposed to any area of the city receiving an increase in services, but it should not be at the expense of other areas, and should be in addition to basic
patrol coverage. “Commissioner Walsh’s geographic policing program, coupled with the flurry of recent directives and orders my members have received to enforce minor violations with ‘zero tolerance’ and ‘intensive enforcement activity,’” Wells continued, “has no support that I have heard Continued on page 8