Huntington Station Residents: 'They All Matter'

Between 300-400 gathered at Heckscher Park across from Huntington Town Hall Tuesday for the Maggie Matters March, in honor of Maggie Rosales, the Walt Whitman High School senior found dead in Huntington Station last week.

The march was held an hour before the Town of Huntington Board meeting, where protesters – many of them dressed in maroon and white, Whitman colors – sought to speak their minds to officials.

“Stop the crime. Stop the violence. They all matter,” community members chanted in the park, recalling not only Maggie Rosales but others considered victims of violent crimes, including in the last year the deaths of Sarah Strobel, Luis Ramos Rodriguez and Daniel Carbahal. In these cases, no arrests have been made yet.

“We need to take back our town,” Mary Beth Kraese told community members. “It starts today.”

Joining the crowd Tuesday in its stand against crime were Cesar Rosales, Maggie Rosales’s father, and Curtis Sliwa of the Guardian Angels.

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“We’re all here together in solidarity,” Sliwa said. He noted that the Guardian Angels had patrolled Huntington Station after the closing of the Jack Abrams school, which reopened last year as a STEM school. On Tuesday, he said to cheers, “We are coming back to Huntington Station.”

Also addressing the crowd were Huntington School Board Trustee Xavier Palacios and Fredis Carbajal, Daniel Carbajal’s father.

Not all of the protesters could fit inside the packed Town Hall, which has seating and standing capacity of about 350. So they lined the hallways instead, trying to get inside.

Speaking in Town Hall were Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone and Police Chief of Department James Burke.

Shouldering the blame for what critics have called a lack of communication with residents, and pledging to correct that, Bellone also said he was “devastated” by the murder of Maggie Rosales.

“It is my top priority and the top priority of the police department to solve these murders,” he said.

And while tensions seemed to briefly lift after Bellone spoke, community members jeered as Burke shared statistics, saying crime had decreased. Audience members were upset that Bellone and Burke didn’t stay longer at the meeting. In addition, the town had to fix an issue with the microphones, which were not working properly.

The Town of Huntington is working with the Suffolk Police Huntington Town Crime Task Force, and is dedicating code enforcement personnel to work with the police department on locations that are the breeding grounds for crime, a Huntington Town spokesman told Patch.

“Everyone feels for the Rosales family and the others and reached out to offer any assistance the town could provide,” the spokesman said.

There are plans for a meeting in November to address the crime issue in Huntington Station.

Some community members aim to speak at future Town Board meetings to continue the conversation.

The Town Board meets next on Nov. 6.