Since late April, crooks have burglarized three village landmarks — Mother’s Restaurant, the Onondaga Lake Marina and Heid’s.
Liverpool Police have already closed the first two, and an arrest is expected shortly in the third case.
The recent string of break-ins began at 10:20 p.m. Monday, April 27, when an intruder illegally entered Mother’s Restaurant, 201 First St., and stole alcohol from the bar. LPD Officer Sean Pierce responded to the scene shortly after a witness reported a man breaking windows at the restaurant.
At the scene Pierce saw the suspect running and chased him two blocks to Nichols’ Supermarket parking lot where he arrested Daniel Bills, 20, of 414 First St. Charged with third-degree burglary, larceny and criminal mischief, Bills was arraigned before Village Justice Anthony LaValle at 1:15 .m. April 28.
Nearly two months later, on June 26, LPD Officer Ken Hatter arrested Bills again, this time in connection with 17 thefts from vehicles in the village. In June, Bills was charged with petit larceny, fifth-degree possession of stolen property, resisting arrest and third-degree escape. Bills was incarcerated and later released on $10,000 bail or $20,000 bond
Boat break-ins
On the morning of Sunday, June, 7 a Syracuse man was arrested after a series of break-ins on boats docked at Onondaga Lake Park Marina, at the western end of Sycamore Street.
LPD Officer James Murray responded to a 911 call at about 7:25 a.m., after boat-owner Raymond R. McQueen of Baldwinsville confronted an intruder on his boat at about 7 a.m. After searching the premises, Murray drove to Onondaga Lake Parkway where he chased a man on a bicycle heading toward the city.
After a short struggle, Murray arrested Luis A. Plama, 22, of the Rescue Mission in Syracuse.
We recovered some stolen property and were able to identify two vessels the suspect had been on,” said LPD Chief William Becker. Det. James Nightingale of the Camillus Police Department was called in under the auspices of the Onondaga Major Felony Unit to oversee the processing of evidence in the Plama case.
Heid’s hit
At about 4 a.m. Monday, June 22, an undetermined amount of cash was stolen from Heid’s of Liverpool, one of Onondaga County’s best known fast-food drive-ins, doing business for 70 years at its 305 Oswego St. location.
Becker anticipates that the Heid’s case will be solved shortly.
“We do have suspects,” he said last Wednesday, July 22.
“We take pride in the fact that, statistically, the village of Liverpool remains far below the national standard in the number of burglaries,” Becker said. “And so far, we’ve been able to close a couple cases by arrest, and I’m confident that the open case (the Heid’s burglary) will be closed the same way.”
The area’s faltering economy motivates burglars, the chief noted.
According to federal Uniform Crime Report statistics, the LPD investigated
four burglaries in 2006 and 12 in 2007. The 2008 figures are yet to be published, but the federal statisticians have reported a .5 percent increase in burglaries in communities with populations of 10,000 or less. When the 2000 census was tallied, the village’s population was 2,505.
