FINEST MESS
Say slay-probe cops trashed pool, yard7
COPS destroyed a Queens woman’s swimming pool — then left her high and dry.
Margaret Thevenin, a retired city Correction captain, had just left for a two-week vacation in North Carolina when a gunman shot a police officer in the face outside of her Queens Village home in May 2015.
The officer, Brian Moore, and his partner had approached a man adjusting an object in his waistband in their unmarked patrol car and tried to question him before he pulled out a gun and started blasting away.
Moore was shot twice in the head.
The shooter ran off — and the NYPD launched a massive manhunt for him, starting with Thevenin’s home.
She claims cops broke into her garage and rummaged through it before turning their attention to her pool, which she had just opened up for the spring.
A neighbor called Thevenin’s daughter to say her family’s home had become a staging area for dozens of officers.
The daughter called her mom, who headed back home two days into her vacation after seeing photos online of scores of officers in her yard.
The 55-year-old retiree couldn’t believe what she saw when she arrived.
“My place was trashed,” she recalled Wednesday.
Items were thrown all over her garage and some furniture was broken — while the drawers in an old dresser were missing. The backyard was covered with trash and broken glass.
She went out to her semi-inground pool, and found it had been drained after holes had been poked into it.
The drawers from the dresser were on the bottom of the pool — as was a step-ladder from her garage.
“That doesn’t belong in anybody’s pool!” Thevenin said.
She noted that the pool was on the side of the garage, meaning the officers had to carry the furniture outside the door and around the corner to hurl the objects in.
“Why do they have to do that?” she asked. “I feel like it was hit and run — they did this to my house and then ran off. You don’t hit somebody’s house and then leave. They didn’t leave a note or anything.”
She said she went to the 105th Precinct stationhouse to get some answers — and didn’t exactly get a warm welcome.
“You’re worried about your pool? We have a dead body,” Thevenin said she was told.
She said she returned weeks later and met with a community affairs officer, who assured her the damage would be taken care of.
She never heard back — or ever saw a dime from the city.
This past June — 13 months after the incident — the frustrated grandmother tried filing a notice of claim against the city so she could file suit and force the NYPD to pay for the damages, which she estimated to be about $15,000.
The lawsuit was first reported by DNAinfo.com.
The city is challenging Thevenin’s move in court, claiming she waited too long to take action.
Thevenin, who’d worked for the city since 1974, said she was frustrated the NYPD — an agency she frequently worked with while she was stationed on Rikers Island — wouldn’t just do the right thing.
“I took them at their word,” she said. “Why should I make a report when they’re the ones who did the damage?”
Last month, she sold the house, saying “after that incident, I didn’t feel safe.”
She is currently living in New Jersey.
Thevenin said the city should still step up and pay her for the damages.
“Somebody should do the right thing,” she said.
The NYPD referred a call for comment to the city Law Department, which declined comment.
Thevenin’s former neighbors said they’re not very sympathetic.
“I remember that day. It was sad. There were police everywhere. They had flashlights and were in my backyard with flashlights,” said Maria Perez, 30. “I don’t think suing the police is a good idea. They weren’t in our backyards because they wanted to. They were trying to find something.”
Another neighbor, François Zéphirin, 77, said, “I don’t know what kind of damage was done in her house, but I think they were just doing their job.”
“It’s not fair. They just wanted to catch the bad guy,” he said.
Moore, 25, died two days after the shooting.
Demetrius Blackwell, 35, was nabbed by cops about 90 minutes after the shooting.
He’s awaiting trial on first-degree murder charges.