While crime rates overall are relatively low, a few problem spots exist such as trail-head break-ins, drug-related thefts
By Will Doolittle
Sarah Keyes is often up in the middle of the night, after she gets off a nursing shift at Adirondack Health in Saranac Lake. Instead of going to bed, she goes running.
Out on the rail trail in the dark, the 38-year-old ultra-runner is occasionally startled by another person. “I think, am I safe?” she said.
Keyes spends hours alone in the woods running, but she has only felt the whisper of a threat from another person a couple of times while training, and it was far from the Adirondacks.
Once in Utah and once on the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington, she said, she crossed paths with men who tried to extend conversations to an uncomfortable point, but an easy escape was at hand—she ran.
Like others who use the Adirondack lakes and mountains for training and recreation, Keyes said she has never had anything stolen or felt threatened while out in the North Country.
Trail parking break-ins
Not that it never happens. On Nov. 26, items were taken from cars in smash-and-grab thefts at the trailheads for Poke-O-Moonshine in Lewis, Baxter and Hurricane in Keene and Belfry in Moriah, police said.
“Never did I fathom this happening,” said John Sasso of Albany, who has been hiking in the area for 12 years and whose car was broken into that day at the Poke-O-Moonshine lot.
The passenger window in his car was broken and a like-new pair of trail crampons stolen, along with a pair of prescription glacier glasses, a few National Geographic illustrated trail maps and a heart rate monitor he used in gym workouts.
Insurance covered the glass but not the gear and he’s “trying to keep things in perspective,” he said, and is glad the locked glovebox containing his wallet wasn’t violated.
From now on, “even if I hike locally, that wallet’s with me,” he said.
Major Michael Blaise, of the Essex County Sheriff’s Office, said four vehicles were broken into the day of Sasso’s incident. Someone made off with just a few dollars, he said. Blaise recommends locking valuables, including wallets and purses, in the trunk.
“The drug problem is definitely increasing,” Blaise said, but any crime associated with it appears to be restricted to the villages. “We’ve seen nothing like that in the woods.”
Other thefts
In downtown Saranac Lake, photographer Mark Kurtz’s studio was burgled twice last September. A thief took $25 in cash the first time before Kurtz installed a dead bolt on his door. Yet someone got in anyway and stole $10,000 in camera equipment and other possessions.
A check that was stolen was later found in the basement of a local home, where someone had been living while the owner was away, he said.
New York state’s Department of Criminal Justice Services compiles rates for “index crimes”—murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft.
In 2021, Franklin County’s rate of index crimes was near the middle for the state—37th out of New York’s 62 counties.
Essex and Hamilton counties reported lower rates—Essex was 55th and Hamilton 57th.
Drug activity
Local police chiefs say Adirondack villages have also not been spared the suffering and death from methamphetamine and fentanyl that have plagued rural areas nationwide.
“The drug problem in Tupper Lake has gotten significantly worse,” said Eric Proulx, who has served as a local police officer for 27 years —10 as the village’s chief. “The whole park is plagued by drug abuse. A few years ago, it was heroin. Now it’s meth.”
The drug is being imported to the region, he said. “We don’t have a meth lab problem. We have a meth use problem.”
Proulx links substance abuse to crimes such as larcenies.
The Tupper Lake shoplifting caseload has risen, he said, 500%.
RELATED READING: Hear from a former drug user/dealer in Tupper Lake on how he’s now fighting for his community
Police staffing struggles
Despite these troubles, the Tupper Lake department recently had to eliminate its night patrols—calls from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. are now answered by the State Police—because of a shortage of officers. Proulx and Lake Placid Chief Charles Dobson echoed the complaints of peers around the state that recent reform of bail and arraignment laws, which required judges to release most suspects, has frustrated police.
Defendants are being arrested and released multiple times, Proulx said, and failing to show up for court dates. Officers are spending hours driving defendants to the closest public defender, in Malone, for arraignment, only to have them released without bail.
Dobson, who was an officer in Saranac Lake before joining Lake Placid’s department, added: “We’ve been put in a position where we arrest someone who is a danger to someone else, and we have to release them.”
Like other small-town police chiefs, Dobson struggles to keep a full staff, he said, frequently losing officers to the more generous salaries and benefits of the State Police.
“I’m down almost a third of where I want to be,” he said. His force consists of 11 full-time and two part-time officers.
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“Defendants are being arrested and released multiple times, Proulx said, and failing to show up for court dates. Officers are spending hours driving defendants to the closest public defender, in Malone, for arraignment, only to have them released without bail.”
This is nonsense. Police officers should be picking up criminals and driving them to jail. The public defender can visit them there. You commit a crime you do the time!
The answer to these village policing problems would be to establish a Chief Constable with an Auxiliary having the powers to arrest leaving investigations to the State Police. This has proven to work in other remote parts of the State where staffing small Departments struggle to keep officers.
Pathetic
I was born and raised in the Adirondacks. I fly up non-stop to Albany on occasion, family reunions and funerals. We’ve lost so many people and friends to what you’re trying to flight it saddens me. There’s no finer place to be raisethan in the mountains. At least that’s how I felt 50 years ago!, I’m 70 And how things have changed.
What was the point in talking about Sarah Keyes lmfao such a waste of half this article. And yeah drugs are a problem, but cops here do nothing at all about it. Offered meth and coke my first time going to the waterhole by some random person there who looked like a meth head. How dumb are the cops here to not see who the dealers are? None of them have any fkn teeth left and the cops let them roam around town selling more of it.
A symptom of liberals moving north to escape NYC from the rampant crime their voting habits created. It’s only going to get worse.
Thanks Democtrats!
Exactly. Just remember this liberal democrats as this is going to get worse and ruin the ADK as you got to the voting booth. You voted for Hochul and all of the liberal shite policies; now you can deal with your little quaint towns turning into NYC. You asked for it, now you got it. And soon, all of the police officers will leave for better pay and less politics if that’s possible.
Typical right winger blaming other people for their problems and willing to spend money to lock people up but not to help them out. The drug crimes are non partisan and if anything, a product of the GOP’s failed war on drugs. Releasing persons without bail is for non violent crimes only and it allows poor people the same freedom as rich people. These people have not been convicted, they are alledged petty criminals. The cops need to enforce the laws, if someone fails to apear in court they need to be re-arrested and jailed.
Tupper Lake’s issues could be in any conservative town anywhere in the nation. It’s lucky that there are people moving in, Tupper Lake looks better than it has in years! Quit listening to Fox News and talk radio, reality is much better then you think!
Non-violent? Have you actually read the list of “non-violent” crimes? Stalking, physical assault, illegal firearms….all “non-violent” under bail reform.
The liberals gave us this park in the first place, and try to keep the corporations and developers from stealing it from under us. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Seriously, Ted? I am a proud liberal, and I look at the mess MAGA Repubs are putting this country, I gag. Liberals, who focus on fairness and equality for everyone, even for people who think like you, are not the problem. There is enough blame to go around without trying to dump it all on Democrats. How many Dems have committed 91 felonies? Please…
Crime is low?
What are you talking about?
The Democrat run cities are out of control with Crime in witch it is spilling out into the burbs and country.
Come on.
May I submit to you that many of the left leaning people who are nature enthusiasts have brought this on themselves. Criminals are being coddled, drug use is condoned, yet we still have democrats running the show in Albany.
I thought the biggest problem in the Adirondacks is racism and hate crimes?
I braced myself for the comments section here and it didn’t disappoint. Come on guys. Also, disappointed in the framing of the “drug problem” like addiction is a choice. All the negativity just bums me out.
I grew up in NYS and paddled, hiked, camped, and hunted much of the Adirondacks. Now living in SC and if I lived in NYS would be packing to move. NY has special places (mountains, seacoast) and an an educated workforce but is cursed by the second worst gubmint in the country. Yes, we do have crime but if you can legally own a gun a concealed weapons permit is only an application away – and free. At least then I am equipped to be my own first responder if needed. Since 1996 I am only aware of a tiny number of inappropriate gun uses in spite of a hue and cry that there would be “be blood in the streets”. Just didn’t happen!
There is an old saying “if you always do what you always did you will always get what you always got”. Voting has consequences.
Regard,
Sorry, but decades of gerrymandering has ensured that voting no longer has consequences.
I don’t know. All the back and forth politics get us nowhere. I don’t know what caused the problem but think we should just fix it…..
I have a small cabin in Southern Hamilton County, Silver Lakes region. Been broken into many times over the years my family has owned it. Last time Hamilton Sheriff told me to install hidden trail cams to at least hopefully get a picture of the perpetrator(s). I did and recently the internet has improved to the point where I can now have web cams. Although expensive for the initial cost and then monthly fees, it’s worth it to be able to have an eye on goings around the cabin. The area has no cell service so without the internet the cams would be useless for an immediate notification. Knock on the old white pine, so far so good. Besides the “Private property” signs that are needed since the area is lightly populated, I also added “Smile your on Camera” signs I did myself. Also, if you do notice anything odd notify your local sheriff/police. They need to know what’s going on too, since there maybe only one officer on the road for a large area. With more information the sheriff can maybe establish a pattern and catch the thief. Unfortunately, the courts are another thing, and this is why it’s always important to see WHO your voting for when it comes to Judges. Too many folks out there are blindly loyal to certain parties.