PORT JERVIS – Just as Port Jervis Police Chief William Worden, Mayor Dominic Cicalese, and Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler concluded a meeting about community policing outreach in the city’s Fourth Ward last Thursday, gunfire rang out a few blocks away.
Worden said officers responded to reports of a disturbance and a gun being fired at approximately 9:15 p.m. near the intersection of Church and Franklin Streets. Officers responded to the scene at that time and confirmed that a shot had been fired. No injuries were reported and the incident remains under investigation. Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the detective division at 845-856-5101.
At the outreach session itself, Common Council members Jaqueline Dennison, Stanley Siegel, and Jason Vicchiarriello also took part in the outreach event.
Despite problems several residents say regularly plague some neighborhoods in the city, both Hoovler and Worden reported crime as being the lowest in recent decades. Hoovler credited Port Jervis Police Department with proactively working to stop guns and drugs from coming into the city and extending their policing efforts beyond city limits to do so.
“Every person who sells significant quantities of drugs carries guns,” Hoovler said. “Port Jervis has a good core group of young officers who know their community. People who are carrying guns in this community brought them from somewhere else, and the police are trying to stop them before they get here.”
While Worden said he was encouraged to report lower crime statistics through the end of 2025, he noted a spike in the most serious types of crimes in April.
“Our shifts were very busy in April, with 22-23 incidents in one shift,” Worden said. “Crime is so much more complicated and fluid than when I was a kid. That’s why we depend on partnering with other agencies for resources. If a drug dealer is selling in Port Jervis but lives elsewhere, we’ll get them with the help of these partnerships.”
On the positive side, Worden reported that grants received by his department have been able to allow for increased patrols, and PJPD is fully staffed as a department for the first time in over a decade. He said the department’s K-9 will be back on shifts in the fall, and having dispatchers on the desk has freed up more officers to be on the road. Port Jervis’ high domestic violence rate now has a domestic violence advocate working to assist residents through the department. Worden praised the skill of officers in the department in utilizing today’s technology resources, including police drone pilots, camera footage used for immediate and precise investigation of crimes, and crime analysis of phones and four-way video readers.
Many of the problems brought up by residents were identified as economy-related, including substandard housing conditions, absentee landlords, growing use of e-bikes, noise and nuisance disturbances. Others reported speeding, not stopping at stop signs, and ignoring crosswalks.
Cicalese said that while some of the issues do not currently have answers, laws can be changed to allow for better enforcement. He praised the efforts of local police in working to enforce the laws currently in place. He, as well as the council members present, pledged to continue to work toward better code enforcement laws in the city, agreeing that nobody should have to live in the conditions that exist in some local homes.
Worden said ‘hot spots’ in the lower second and fourth wards are being patrolled more intensively, but that all areas of the city are being patrolled regularly.
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