The shady history of the Island Park Police Department

I’m not sure if any of you folks have noticed, but Island Park does not have its own police department.

I know: shocker, right?

But what may be surprising to know is that, in the years after the village was incorporated, it did have its own police department. However, the small force was ripe with corruption.

It all started on July 6, 1937, when nine men were arrested in Brooklyn. According to a New York Times article (you know how I love old newspaper stories), the nine men were calling people and falsely representing themselves as members of the Police Department of Island Park, selling “fake” police courtesy cards. They had a floor of a building in Brooklyn set up as an office, with phones and a “suckers” list of people they could call.

The story was a small one in the paper — only five paragraphs. And at that point, there was nothing linking the men arrested to the actually Island Park police.

Fast forward two weeks to July 20. “Chief of Police Alex Rosenswaike and Lieutenant Harry Yale, both of the Island Park (L.I.) Police Department, and seven co-defendants were arraigned yesterday in Special Sessions, Brooklyn, on a charge of conspiracy to obtain money under false pretenses by operating a charity scheme in which several thousand persons were victimized,” read the first sentence of another New York Times article. According to the district attorney at the time, the racket had netted itself nearly $30,000.

Based on some conversions, that’s more than $450,000 today. Not too shabby.

According to the article, they racket worked this way: people on the suckers list would get a call from someone claiming to be from the Island Park police, saying that they were collecting money for the relief of orphans and widows of officers. In exchange for donating, people would receive one of the fake courtesy cards, which they were told would be a “good thing to have” if they were ever in the area.

The scammers told their suckers that six Island Park officers had recently been killed in action. In reality, there were only four officers in the entire department (including the chief), and no officers had been killed in the previous five years.

To make things seem more legitimate, after someone donated money, they received a letter from Yale thanking them for their contribution.

The funds the men in Brooklyn collected were forwarded to Rosenswaike and Yale, who returned 60 percent to the solicitors as a commission. They rest they kept, using it to buy “uniforms, cartridges and medical supplies, according to the prosecutor, and also as a source from which to borrow.”

Rosenswaike did not take the charges lightly. He was quoted in the Times saying that the charges were another example of a “small-town police force being framed by the New York City police.”

The trial started on Nov. 15. The officers were found guilty on Nov. 26. Their sentence was “…thirty days in the workhouse.” It was right around the time of this trial (it may have been during or after — I couldn’t get any firm confirmation) that the Island Park Police Department was disbanded by the village board.

But here’s the real kicker: officials at the time probably should have seen this whole thing coming, since the Board of Trustees ousted Rosenswaike as the Chief of Police five years earlier, in 1932, because he was charged with accepting bribes.

However, he wasn’t fired. He was demoted back to a patrolman and Harry Yale (the lieutenant who was also arrested in charged in the racket) was appointed the new chief.

The third paragraph in this New York Times story from Aug. 24, 1932, really sums up the whole situation:

“Nicholas Herman, a grocer of Long Beach Road, whose testimony before the Board of Trustees at an open hearing last Thursday resulted in the removal action, is held on $2,500 bail on a charge of perjury lodged against him by Rosenswaike as a result of the hearing. Herman was arrested Saturday night by the deposed Police Chief on a warrant obtained from Police Justice Henry Pearl, who recently was accused of splitting a $50 fine for a motor vehicle violation with Police Sergeant Fred Barth and Rosenswaike.”