When a 17-year-old boy was fatally stabbed in Woodhaven last month, the neighborhood was shaken by the disturbing crime. And thanks to the memory of one hero cop, one suspect who fled the scene was eventually apprehended, leading to accolades from the NYPD’s 102nd Precinct Community Council on Tuesday evening.
“We all know that modern policing is a lot of high-tech tools,” said Capt. Pratima Maldonado, the commanding officer of the 102. “We got cameras, forensics, but at the end of the day, the most effective tool we have is a sharp officer who knows what they’re doing.”
Though there were no witnesses to the Jan. 9 stabbing, there was some footage that enabled cops to grab still images and put out wanted fliers. Maldonado said that most people would just glance at the wanted image and go on with their lives.
But Officer Arlette Martinez Aguilar, a cop with the 102, took a hard look and recognized a familiar face.
“About a month and a half ago, when Officer Martinez Aguilar had a brief routine interaction with a juvenile, it wasn’t major. It wasn’t something she was arresting him for, it was maybe a summons or just talking to him,” Maldonado explained.
But Martinez Aguilar remembered him. She went back to her body-worn camera footage and told her squad she had an interaction with him.
“She brought up the videos, and you can see clear as day that the same person seen in the [stabbing surveillance] video is on her body-worn camera,” Maldonado said.
Within a day and a half, detectives were able to put a probable cause Investigative Card out, meaning a digital alert in the department’s database, and the suspect was arrested.
Because of her good eye and memory, Martinez Aguilar was awarded Cop of the Month by the 102nd Precinct Community Council.
A second suspect in the stabbing was later apprehended. One meeting attendee remarked, “When [Martinez Aguilar] did that, she got two people off the street — because she remembered one, it led to the arrest of both.”