In the Case of the Dead Dog, Police Say They ‘May Have Dropped the Ball’

Three months after a highly publicized attack in a Brooklyn park left a dog dead, no arrests have been made as the local precinct finds itself in turmoil.

By John Leland

Nov. 4, 2022

It seemed like an easy case: A woman told the police that a man had attacked her and her dog in Prospect Park, in Brooklyn, striking the dog with a stick so hard that he later died. Park users regularly spotted the attacker, in the same area, in the morning hours, cursing at women with dogs.

The attack led to debates about policing and liberal orthodoxy in the face of violent crime, and at least 11 articles in the city’s three daily newspapers. The Daily Mail also weighed in — three times — from England. The American Conservative took aim from the right.

But three months later, the attacker is still at large, despite regular reported sightings by people in the park, raising a different question: How can the New York Police Department, with a budget of more than $5 billion, be stymied for three months by a man who seems to live off redeemed soda cans?

Last week, at a contentious virtual town hall meeting, Capt. Frantz Souffrant, the commanding officer of the 78th Precinct, which includes Park Slope and the park itself, apologized to angry residents, admitting, “We may have dropped the ball,” according to the local news site Patch.com. Several residents, including Jessica Chrustic, whose dog was killed, complained that they had spotted the man and called 911, only to wait half an hour or more for a police car to show up. After 40 minutes, the meeting abruptly ended in the middle of a resident’s sentence.

Soon after, Captain Souffrant told Patch that he was going to try moving his patrols to different positions to catch the man.

But Lt. Kamala Roper, the platoon commander in the 78th Precinct responsible for the area of the attack, said there was one reason for the lack of an arrest: Captain Souffrant. Lieutenant Roper, a 22-year veteran, is one of three officers in the precinct currently suing the captain over his management practices.

“In the precinct, all we’ve been talking about is that there’s no directives there by the C.O.,” Lieutenant Roper said in an interview, using the abbreviation for commanding officer. “The cops are coming to me complaining, ‘We don’t know what to do.’ If we encounter this guy in the park, nobody says how to proceed.” She said that communication was so bad within the precinct that if she wanted to know what was going on with the case, she read the newspaper.

“That’s how I get information,” she said. “Call any police officer and ask them what’s going on with the dog incident. I’m going to be embarrassed, because they don’t know.”

Her lawyer, John Scola, shared an email she sent to Captain Souffrant last Thursday, asking for a brief meeting to discuss the case. He still has not answered, Mr. Scola said.

In September, Lieutenant Roper, who is Black, sued Captain Souffrant, along with another captain in the precinct and the City of New York, claiming sexual and racial discrimination and retaliation. Among her charges: that Captain Souffrant favored female officers with whom he had personal relationships, and that when she complained about this, he retaliated against her. Captain Souffrant is also Black.

Two more officers from the 78th, Aron Baksh and Berland Prince, filed a similar discrimination suit against Captain Souffrant on Oct. 21 that included charges of pervasive bullying and racial insults.

Now the precinct is flailing under Captain Souffrant’s command, Lieutenant Roper said.

“Morale is low,” she said. “The officers are stressed out. They’re being bullied every single day.” She added: “Somebody’s going to get hurt.”

Captain Souffrant, who took over the precinct in January 2021, was one of four officers sued in 2014 on charges of falsely arresting a Brooklyn man who recorded them arresting another man. The suit was settled for $20,000 without admission of fault.

The department’s public information office did not make Captain Souffrant available for an interview and declined to comment on Lieutenant Roper’s charges or pending litigation. In a statement, it said: “The N.Y.P.D. has dedicated significant resources to this investigation to bring the individual responsible to justice. The N.Y.P.D. has conducted canvasses of the park with the victim and witnesses, had the victim sit with a sketch artist, and posted the images of the suspect in the park and increased patrols in the park. We continue to work with the victim, and when a positive identification can be made, an arrest will be made.”

Among parkgoers, frustrations with the police continue to build, as more people share their experiences, often on social media. Major crimes in the precinct are up 52 percent from two years ago, though still a fraction of their 1980s highs.

Adding to the theater, the Guardian Angels last month announced that they would send patrols into the park to — as founder Curtis Sliwa told his radio audience — “save the park and save the women and save the little doggies.”

Diana Poveromo, 50, who lives near Ms. Chrustic, said that when she went to the precinct to ask about the case, the officer at the front desk told her that even if the police arrested the man, “it’s very likely he’ll just be released the next day.”

More than 11,000 people have signed a petition advising Mayor Eric Adams that “the N.Y.P.D. have done virtually nothing to apprehend this man.”

For Ms. Chrustic, it has been a three-month ordeal. At one point she said she was summoned to the precinct to identify a suspect, then arrived to find no suspect. Instead an officer told her to exhume her dog’s two-month-dead body for future forensic evidence, she said.

But the quintessential frustrating experience came on Oct. 21, when she was woken in the early morning by a friend, Mary Rowland, who said she saw Ms. Chrustic’s attacker walking along the park, rifling through garbage cans for empties. Both women called 911.

Hoping to keep an eye on the man until the police arrived, Ms. Chrustic dressed quickly and started following him in the predawn morning, carrying a can of mace for protection. As she went, she made repeated calls to 911 and to individual officers to update her location.

“I thought, The police are going to be here any second,” she said.

But they weren’t. Finally, the man turned and rushed toward her, carrying what she thinks was mace and the stick that she said he used to kill her dog. Ms. Chrustic ran.

“I’m screaming at the top of my lungs for someone to help me,” she said. “I was not prepared.”

The man gave up the chase after a block. Ms. Chrustic and Ms. Rowland, who had caught up with her, lost sight of him.

Thirty-six minutes after Ms. Chrustic’s first call to 911, she called the police for at least the 10th time that morning, according to a log of her calls. By the time the police arrived, the man was gone.

Hours later, Ms. Chrustic was still audibly shaken. “I did exactly what the police have told me to do,” she said. “Keep him in my sight until they arrive. And this was the cost.”

Finally on Saturday, Oct. 29, there appeared to be a break in the case. The police had picked up a man and called Ms. Chrustic to come in for a lineup. Five men were presented, seated and wearing hats.

None was the right man, she said. She left the precinct questioning whether the police would ever call her in again.

“This is a heavy weight to carry,” she said.

And she was doubly frustrated that the police had taken so long to respond a week earlier. “I had him in my sights for 40 minutes,” she said. “And no one showed up.”