Port Chester: Top Crime Stories of 2011

There are a few obvious reasons why a Greenwich man's June arrest tops this year's list of crime stories in Port Chester.

First, the accusation was disturbing -- police say 42-year-old Robert Berwick was crouched in the bushes at Lyon Park, just five yards away from a pair of young children as he filmed them with a video camera.

Then there were the post-arrest revelations, a long list of accusations and convictions dating back to 2001, mostly involving filming women and couples in public spaces like parks and libraries.

But the icing on the cake, the detail that compelled thousands of readers to click on a post detailing Berwick's Port Chester arrest, was the Greenwich man's mug shot.

When an undercover cop confronted Berwick in Lyon Park, Berwick made the last of his bad choices -- he lashed out at the officer and struck him with a video camera.

The officer subdued Berwick, landing a blow to the Greenwich man's face in the process. The resulting mugshot shows a despondent-looking Berwick, his right eye framed by a massive bruise in dark purple and red.

"Nice shiner!" one reader commented. Almost 300 others shared the link on their Facebook pages, and the story was Tweeted, re-Tweeted and picked up by newspapers and television stations both regional and national.

Another reader favorite came earlier this month, when a Port Chester woman tried to talk her way out of a shoplifting arrest by pleading with officers.

"I didn't think it was stealing as long as I didn't leave the parking lot," 26-year-old Amy Rosenberg told police.

And then there were the crimes that worked mostly as displays of pure stupidity, incidents that managed to be comical even though some of them involved victims who were hurt or scammed.

Among them: A Port Chester man who tried to extort money from a 27-year-old CT woman, but used his real name in the process, making it easy for police to find and arrest him; a Port Chester woman who opened a tab at a local bar using a stolen credit card that belonged to the woman sitting on the very next bar stool; a Port Chester man who fell flat on his face when officers asked him to get out of his car and prove his sobriety; and an accused shoplifter who tried to hide from police officers as if they were monsters, taking up a position under a bed in a stranger's apartment.

Thankfully, not every story had a bad ending. Whether it was a car thief who had a change of heart and returned a stolen vehicle without a scratch, or a Good Samaritan who helped a woman escape a brutal attack, some incidents are a reminder that there's always a bit of good, even when things go bad.

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