By Mark Francis Cohen, Staff Reporter
The city Transportation Department plans to tighten security at the Port Morris tow pound after a sting operation caught city workers stealing from impounded vehicles in other boroughs, the Bronx Beat has learned.
Car owners reported 22 thefts out of 5,000 vehicles brought to the pound at 141st Street and Bruckner Boulevard from July to December last year, the department said.
"The number is low," said Allen Fromberg, a Department of Transportation spokesman, "but we do take the problem seriously."
The number of thefts, however, actually may be higher because of the inconvenience of making out a crime report.
During a three-hour period last week, only two motorists came to retrieve their cars. One, Claudio De La Cruz, came back from his car irate, screaming that stereo speakers and other articles had been stolen from his gray, 1987 Chevy Caprice.
Then, pointing at a employee through the pound fence, he hollered, "You know it's true."
"No, it's not," the worker muttered.
Still, De La Cruz did not file a complaint. He said it wasn't worth the hassle: going to the 40th Precinct, filling out papers and missing work for another few hours.
To get his car, De La Cruz had to pay $165 -- $150 for the tow and a $15-a-day holding fee. Payments must be made by certified check or in cash.
"For every person that makes a complaint, there are three or four people who don't complain," said City Councilman Kenneth Fisher, D-Brooklyn.
Fisher has called for hearings into misconduct in the department after a hidden television camera caught tow workers rifling through cars and taking property at pounds in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
At Port Morris, the department plans to install high-tech, motion-detection surveillance cameras, remote- controlled lighting and gate locks. The job is expected to cost about $1 million citywide, Fromberg said.
But putting in cameras, which are already used at the Manhattan pound and will be installed soon at the Brooklyn pound, would still give tow operators an opportunity to steal from the cars before bringing them in.
Transportation officials say this problem is not that grave: most off-site thefts occur before a tow truck arrives. "Quite a few cars are picked up after thieves and vandals have been through them," Fromberg said.
Even in the pound, however, cars now appear susceptible to thieves and vandals.
The pound covers a city block and holds an average of 300 cars at any one time, said Maxine Carter, pound manager.
Although corrugated, razor-wire-topped fencing wraps the perimeter of the pound, most of the area, especially the back, seems open to intruders.
At the entrance, two guards -- one armed, one not -- are posted around the clock. But the entrance is at the bottom of a hill, while the rest of the pound is on top of it.
A mound of tar on 142nd Street in back punctuates the vulnerability. The mound leans against the fence, bending it and potentially giving an intruder a way in.
"I don't see any lights back here," said Orsy Molina, who works on Bruckner Boulevard across from the pound. "Security there is not good."
Fisher sees the looting as a cyclical problem. In 1992, similar incidents involving transportation employees prompted a Department of Investigation inquiry and report.
"This seems to be a mini-version of the police scandals that bubble up every few years," he said. "They hear about it, do something and it pops up again a few years later."