Police Department releases blotter on city website

By Regina Clarkin and Jim Roberts

December 9, 2024

Sharp-eyed readers of the City of Peekskill’s website last week may have noticed release of the Peekskill Police department’s call log, or blotter. Located under Departments, Police, the document appears as the Weekly Police Blotter.

This release of police department activity is the result of multiple years of requests from the Herald and citizens. Other municipalities such as Croton and Yorktown have made it a common practice to release their blotters to the public, as have the New York State Police who patrol the Town of Cortlandt. The Peekskill Police blotter lists all calls received and does not provide a narrative or reports of arrests.

A page from the police blotter from November 17, 2024.

The Herald will include selections from the reports for the previous weeks in the Newsworthy Notes story that posts on Mondays.

The Peekskill Police department’s activity logs show nearly 800 calls for service for the one-week period from Nov. 24 to Nov. 30.

The highest number of calls were for special checks by officers when they conduct a check of a specific area for any unlawful activity. These are usually determined as a result of community complaints. Many of those calls were on Main Street with a significant number occurring on both Highland Avenue and North Division Street.

On Nov. 24 a medical aid call on Hillcrest Lane, Chapel Hill produced a dead on arrival discovery. There were six traffic stops on both Nov. 25 and Nov. 26, seven on Nov. 27, seven on Nov. 28, six on Nov. 29 and 13 on Nov. 30 as well as a DWI. On Nov. 27 there were five calls with officers asked to deliver paperwork after hours to city council members to prepare for the following Monday’s council meetings.

On Nov. 29 there were follow-up investigations at King Buffet on East Main Street and other locations on North Division Street, Main Street and South Division Street. A police investigation was conducted on Highland Industrial Park Drive that day.

About the Contributors

Regina Clarkin, Editor and Publisher

When the Peekskill Herald weekly newspaper ceased publishing in August 2000 it was the first time in the history of the city that there wasn’t a local newspaper. The award-winning weekly was often referred to as the ‘glue’ of the community. Founded on January 9, 1986 by Regina Clarkin, Kathy Daley and Rich Zahradnik with a $7,000 credit card line, the paper filled the void created when the daily Evening Star was sold to Gannett and moved out of town. Founding publisher Regina Clarkin continued to live in the Peekskill Cortlandt area and turned her attention to other life endeavors. Through the ensuing 19 years, Clarkin was frequently stopped in town and asked when she would start up the Herald again. In January 2019, Clarkin decided it was less labor intensive to deliver a weekly blog than a print newspaper so she began posting one story a week about life in Peekskill. After a successful crowd funding campaign in 2020, the Herald was incorporated as a non-profit corporation in July of 2021. Peekskill Herald is a digital relative of the former print edition, featuring many of the favorite aspects of the beloved Peekskill Herald such as old pictures, personality profiles and well written stories about newsworthy events. Regina Clarkin is the editor and publisher of the site. Photo by Joe Squillante

Jim Roberts

Jim Roberts has been in this business for more than 35 years (hard to believe) and still learning every day. A third-generation Peekskill resident, he started as a lowly researcher at the Westchester Business Journal in 1986 and learned how to be a reporter from many veterans in the field. He’s worked in private companies, Connecticut state government and wrote for the Co-op City Times for 10 years before retiring from full-time work in 2019. Roberts wants to contribute to building the Herald into a news website for residents who care about what’s happening in Peekskill.