What a day! : My short diary on the Nanuet Standoff.

Friday 2-25-2011 

I went to work as usual by taking the Palisades Interstate Parkway south to exit 8W, and then proceeded on Church Street to get to my office, which locates on the corner of Church and Main Street in Nanuet.

The rain continued to fall as the temperature was a few degrees over the freezing mark. 

A few minute before 9AM, after Parking in the back of my office, I walked down the street. My heart jumped as I saw serious police activities right in the corner of my office with their yellow tape tied onto my mailbox stretching across Main Street all the way to the Chinese Restaurant.

“You can’t go in there,” yelled out an officer who was pacing in the rain in the front of the Chinese Restaurant.

I went back to sit in my car for several minutes and then walked back down to talk with the police officer.

I pointed to him that I would like to get into my building to my office. The officer walked toward me and said not to cross the yellow warning rope. I asked him what happened; he said he could not tell me. 

“Is it health hazard?” I continued. “I couldn’t tell you,” he stated. When is it going to be over?” The officer firmly stated that he could not tell and that he would not make any further comment.

I thought it was just a flood in the road somewhere because Main Street was known to have major flooding with heavy rainfalls. 

Then I thought that maybe it was some gas leak because I thought I smelled some gasoline in the air.

I called my daughter to have her check the internet and she told me that there were some news on channel 12, that there was a police standoff for someone barricaded himself in his own home. Strange, I thought.

I do not remember how many times I had circled around the area waiting for the police to clear out the blocks. I decided to kill my time by going to take a walk inside the Nanuet Mall.   

The mall was very dark. Only Sears, Macy's, and a few shops in between were open. Not that it was too early, the Nanuet Mall had been deserted (or virtually dead) for a few years now since the New Palisades Center Mall opened in West Nyack-- about a mile east of Nanuet. 

This was the very first time in a few months that I went to this dying Mall. I could not believe how the one time beautiful and busy mall is now nearly out of business. I could only dream that if I had enough money to buy this mall and transform it into something else different. 

After stopping by Radio Shacks to get a SD card for my camera, I bumped into one of my clients Rudy, a very nice man from the Philippines.

“What are you doing here, Rudy?”

“Oh, walking, and Oh Tim, I have something in my car for you, I just returned my license plates to DMV and I was about to go to your office, come on let’s walk with me to my car.” 

“You couldn’t get to my office anyway, Rudy,” I replied.

“Why not, Tim?” Rudy asked and looked at me with his eyebrows curved into his eye sockets.

“There is a police standoff surrounding my office. Someone barricaded himself inside his own home” “Yeah? I read it on the newspapers about that this morning.” Rudy said.

I said to myself, “what a fast news service we have in Rockland.” Things just happened and the news got printed right away.    

Rudy and I walked across the empty mall to the north side parking areas. Only one clothing store open near the north side entrance. On my way there, I saw a man who was sleeping on one of the benches near the entrance. Besides him, there were a couple of suite cases. It appeared that the man needed a place to stay for the day or even overnight.

"Wait here, let me get the receipt from my car," said Rudy. 

After Rudy coming back from his car and gave me the receipt from DMV showing the receipt for his Porsche, we walked back towards Sears. 

Rudy told me that he would leave for the Philippines next month. He had built a very nice house there in his Province. I was very happy for him. Rudy is retired now; he always worked hard and has been very good to me—he and his family members have been my clients for many years since my office was in Sears.

“Remember how we met Tim?” “We met here in Sears, in a little office in the back”.

“Yes, Rudy, I remember.”

“I heard you went back home to Cambodia and ran for an office there Tim, did you win?”

I told Rudy that I helped organize a political party and was a candidate for a Cambodian congressional representative in 2008. My political party, which I had disassociated from since 2009, had won three seats and I had no intention to be in Cambodian politics again.

Rudy told me he went to Vietnam visiting  Saigon and Can Tho. He thought he could make it to Cambodia, but he did not.  We talked about a little history of South Vietnam, which for the most part used to belong to Cambodia until the French gave it to the Vietnamese.        

I loved and wanted to talk to Rudy more about Vietnam and Cambodia, but I was anxious to get to my office again to see if the standoff was over. I said goodbye to Rudy and wishing him a great trip to the Philippines. 

Driving in the rain in the empty parking lot of the Nanuet Mall was a challenge. The management have not patched or repaired hundreds of potholes for many months if not years. I thought that the mall was not just dying in the inside, but the outside too was in poor health and dangerous.

I got back on to Main Street and drove down to see if the police activities ended. The yellow traffic light at the intersection of Prospect and Main Streets was still blinking. The police car was still there in front of the Pizzeria blocking Main Street. 

I pulled behind the Channel 12 news van and topped quickly behind their vehicle, which was parking on Prospect St. facing east. I was hoping to get some information from the two crews. The two young men were busy connecting some cables and wires to the news reporters who were gathering on the sidewalk of Main St. in front of the Pizzeria. A few news  reporters and crews were shooting their camera aiming south towards my office, which was about two blocks away. 

I wanted to talk to the police officer who was standing in the rain at the intersection, but he too seemed to be too busy and in no mood for any conversation. I decided to walk back to my car…

"What happened there?" I asked one of the Channel 12 crews who was walking up in a hurry from his van. The young man replied, “Someone barricaded himself in the apartment”

By then, about noontime now, I realized that the standoff would continue for a long time. The cold rain continued to fall. I wanted to go home, but I needed to go Nyack for my physical examination at 1:30PM. 

“What a day!” I said to myself. 

On my way to Nyack, I stopped by “ToyRus” for the first time in decades to pick up a couple of baby things for my 4 months old granddaughter Malise. From there, I drove up to McDonalds to pick up a fish sandwich and some chicken nuggets before heading to Nyack.

I like Nyack. It is a small little town in Rockland with many good restaurants there. It has Chinese, Japanese, Italian and even 2 Thai restaurants in the same area—the King and I and the Thai-House. Nyack is a tough town, though. A parking violation ticket could make you poor for a few weeks. 

I got to the doctor’s office around 1:20. I found a good parking space, but the parking meter did not work. Someone stuck his or her dollar bill in the machine. I only had 1 quarter and 2 dimes. It lasted me until 1:58PM. 

I tried to pull that wet dollar bill out, but the dawn rainfalls kept on pouring on my head and I was soaked like a fish. I hoped that the doctor could see me soon so that I did not have to ask around for some changes.

I was a few minutes late. I did not get a ticket, but I was soaked and wet. 

My daughter called me and let me know that she had called the police department to find out if the standoff was over.  They told her to keep on watching the news. That did not help much.

I drove back to my office and got there about 2:30. There were two police cars still blocking Main Street but the traffic at the intersection was half-clear. With my computer bag hung on my right shoulder, I walked down in the rain to the police officer who was sitting in his car with the front window half shut. A nice young African American police officer told me to wait about 15 minutes.

I looked to the north of my office I saw some ambulances, medical team and police officers were still working to clear and clean up the area. I prayed that no one was hurt in the standoff. Fifteen minutes later, Main Street was still blocked. I went back to the same officer. “It should be over in 2 minutes,” he said.

One of my Latino clients ran to me in the rain trying to pay his bill. “Please give me the receipt,” he demanded. I gave him a handwritten receipt and told him that I could not get in the office yet. “Why? Why? Why?” He asked. I smiled at him and pointed to the police cars.

I walk to the police officer again.

“Are you with Allstate?” The officer turned to look at my office.

“Yes, I am officer”

I waited in the rain for a few minutes and finally the officer said, “Yeah, now you can get in”. 

Now here is the latest news about the two unrelated standoffs.

 2nd Nanuet standoff in as many days ends in suicide

Police block off Main Street in Nanuet, where a 52-year-old disabled man who had been holed up in his apartment during a tense seven-hour standoff with police was found dead with a gunshot wound to his chest on Friday. / Carucha L. Meuse/The Journal News Caruch

NANUET — Just hours after it peacefully ended a stalemate with one suicidal man, Clarkstown Critical Incident Response Team was called in again when a 52-year-old disabled man barricaded himself in his apartment with a gun to his head.

After seven hours, police found the man dead of a rifle wound to the chest.
Both incidents ended after tense standoffs in which Clarkstown police used officers trained in hostage negotiations, special weapons use and coordinated entry into buildings.




"For Clarkstown police to respond to two of these incidents in 12 hours is unusual ," said Sgt. Tim O'Neill.
In the Friday incident, Kevin Dowling, 52, was found dead in his apartment at 205 S. Main St. He was facing eviction and had been holed up in his apartment during a seven-hour standoff.


O'Neill said police entered Dowling's apartment at 1:17 p.m. and found him lying on his bed with a single bullet wound to his chest. A rifle sat on the bed beside his body and an eviction notice lay on the nightstand beside his bed.



Police said he was to have been evicted at 9 a.m. Friday. O'Neill said Dowling killed himself.
On Thursday night, a five-hour standoff came to a close after a man with a rifle fired at police from his home at 16 Ludvigh Road in Nanuet. No one was injured and the man, Francis Bifulco, was arrested after police fired pepper spray canisters into his house.



Bifulco, 26, dropped his weapon and surrendered. He was charged with first-degree reckless endangerment. Charges against him could be upgraded at a later date, police said.
 


Police officers involved in ending the standoff with Bifulco were the same who responded when the Dowling incident was called in at 6:30 a.m. The police response, which was comprised of between 25 and 40 officers, was coordinated by Capt. Robert Mahon; Lt. Glenn Deitrich was in charge of the Critical Incident Response Team and Lt. Daniel Weisberg was responsible for the outer perimeter.



Police did not see a connection between the two and said the second was not a copycat incident, rather one in which the individual was facing serious problems and was depressed.

In both cases, a lot of waiting and patience was required as negotiators tried to convince the two men, with little success, to allow police to enter their homes.

The aim in such cases is to tire out the individual who has barricaded himself, said O'Neill. Initially the individual is high on adrenalin, but after several hours, exhaustion sets in and negotiations are more likely to bear fruit, he said.


"This is different from a hostage situation," said O'Neill. "It's been proven over and over that though it is time consuming, waiting is the best course to take."


That was the case with Bifulco. But in Dowlings case, waiting did not pay off.
Police closed streets near the scene between Prospect and Orchard streets and were redirecting traffic headed for the train station a block away. Two of Dowling's nephews who live in the area were also at the scene; police were in phone contact with two of his sisters who live in California.



At 10:42 a.m., a police negotiator tried to reach out to Dowling via speaker.
"We just want to make sure you're OK," the officer said. "Give me a call. We want to help you."
Dowling did not respond.


Friday morning, police said, a friend started talking with Dowling at 5 a.m. Dowling told told the friend he was to be evicted at 9 a.m. and was depressed. The friend concluded that Dowling, who had been on medication, was suicidal. The friend also knew Dowling owned a gun.


The friend started driving over to Dowling's apartment while keeping him talking on the cell phone. From his car, the friend asked a passer-by to call the police. An officer arrived and spoke with Dowling on the friend's cell phone and asked him to come out. Dowling told the officer that he would come out when he was ready and that he was holding a gun to his head.


That was the last contact police had with Dowling. Police called his cell phone several times but he did not pick up.


Just before 1 p.m., police decided to enter the apartment. Police launched tear gas canisters into the unit from the front and rear and made a coordinated entry into the one bedroom apartment.


Twenty minutes later, officers found Dowling in his second floor back bedroom.


Police said they did not know when Dowling shot himself; an investigation is ongoing. No gunshot was heard during the time police were outside the apartment.


It was possible, O'Neill said, that Dowling shot himself earlier in the morning when police presence around his apartment building was limited. Through the day, between two to three dozen officers, including snipers, negotiators and those in charge of the outer perimeter of the building, were present making it likely that a shot would have been heard.