Ridge Cops honored for nabbing suspected flasher

BY GABRIELLE GUZ

A seemingly endless round of applause erupted on June 19 at the 68th Precinct as Police Officers Nicholas Mosby and Stephanie Drodz were honored as Cops of the Month at the precinct’s latest community council meeting for nabbing a man who allegedly exposed himself to two children in Bay Ridge.

According to Capt. Robert Conwell, the commanding officer of the 68th Precinct, on May 17, at around 6:15 p.m., the NYPD received a call from a distraught father who said that a man had flashed his two sons, an 8-year-old and an 11-year-old. The incident happened near Vista Place and 68th Street.

What should have been a regular walk home from school was upended for the two boys, according to Conwell. Fortunately, they were not hurt because Mosby and Drodz responded quickly to the call.

As soon as the officers had obtained surveillance footage of the incident, Conwell said, they disseminated it across media platforms, and urged residents of the borough to contact the police if they had seen, or knew, the man.

The footage shows a person cops believe to be the suspect in all dark clothing, wearing glasses, approaching the two children, showing them his genitals and fleeing eastbound on foot.

But the flasher’s gaze straight into the camera was what gave him away, Conwell told his listeners. Sharing the close-up, the officers asked anyone with information to help them identify the flasher.  

On May 21, Mosby and Drodz arrested the suspect, identified as 22-year-old Jianxing Cai of Bensonhurst. Cai was charged with lewdness, exposure of a person and an act injurious to children under age 17.

Although Drodz was not at the meeting to receive her award because of a line-of-duty injury, Mosby gladly accepted the honor on her behalf, too.

“They worked effectively and quickly to stop the perpetrator who endangered the safety of young children,” Conwell said.

Cai’s next appearance is scheduled for Aug. 1 in Kings County Criminal Court.

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