NIAGARA FALLS, NY- Niagara Falls Police Superintendent Bryan DalPorto is giving high praise to one of his officers, who captured a wanted man over the weekend.
Despite being on the force for less than two years, Officer Patrick Ciccarelli, according to DalPorto, remembered his tactical training to effectively defuse a potentially dangerous situation.
Ciccarelli was the officer who single handedly arrested Yong Yu, who was wanted by police in New York City for allegedly chopping his wife’s arm off during a domestic dispute.
Man on the Run
Acting on gathered intelligence, lawmen including the U.S. Marshal’s Service suspected Yu had traveled to Niagara Falls in a possible attempt to cross the border into Canada.
They even had reports that he had unsuccessfully tried to cross the border on a tour bus Friday, but that the driver had become suspicious of him and didn’t let him board.
Police say that at the time of his eventual arrest on Saturday, Yu was in possession of a life jacket purchased from Walmart, which they believe he was going to use in an attempt to swim across the Niagara River.
Making the Collar
While patrolling the area near Rainbow Boulevard, Officer Ciccarelli was alerted to Yu’s possible presence inside the One Niagara Center, which is just steps away from the Rainbow Bridge international border crossing.
A video of the arrest, which occurred in a crowded food court full of tourists, was captured by Robert Blevin and has been widely circulated.
“I saw the video, and would agree this was textbook arrest,” DalPorto said.
He noted that Ciccarelli, though he knew backup was on the way, didn't wait for other officers to arrive to make the collar.
In some respects, said DalPorto, the officer couldn’t wait for help.
“This was a uniformed who would have been noticed even in a crowd," DalPorto said.
This could be especially true in the case of Yu, who might have had his guard up for police while on the lam after allegedly committing such a heinous and violent crime.
Ciccarelli also didn’t even ask the suspect to identify himself before quickly placing him in handcuffs,
This was because, according to DalPorto, Ciccarelli also had to consider the potential for the situation to escalate unless he moved decisively.
“As an officer, you have to approach a situation while planning for the worst possible case scenario,” DalPorto said. “He was relatively certain of who this person was, and given the nature of his alleged crime, anything could have happened, including a deadly physical force issue which could have ensued in a crowded place. You can always identify a person later, but he was absolutely right to detain him. It's always a judgment call, and in his (Ciccarelli’s) judgment the best way to go was to put that person in handcuffs and minimize any danger. And I think that was the right way to go in that situation."
A Unique Place to Patrol
The Niagara Falls Police Department serves a permanent resident population of fewer than 50,000 people. However, on any given weekend during the summer tourist season, the city’s population can easily swell to several hundred thousand.
They come from every part of the world, and comprise many languages and cultures.
And with the nearby border presenting a tempting path of escape for fleeing felons, not all those who visit are on vacation.
“We had a man from Ohio last year come here who committed a homicide and who we found in Niagara Falls, so these things do happen," DalPorto said, who estimated that his department is alerted perhaps a dozen times a month on average that someone who is wanted by another police agency may be in his city.
“We get such alerts more often that most people think,” DalPorto said.
However, he was quick to note that despite the enormous amount of people who might be in Niagara Falls during a summer weekend, violent crime in the downtown tourist area is relatively rare, in part because of the number of nearby agencies besides his department, including Border Patrol, New York State Parks Police, and the Niagara County Sheriff’s Department.