“This is the first case in Albany County and Capital Region history to use investigative genetic genealogy,” said Commander Adam Hornick. The modern technology was used to identify the remains of a man who had died in Bethlehem in 1981.

When a fighting crowd dispersed from a Crossgates Mall parking lot on Saturday night, Guilderland Police found a 14-year-old boy standing on the sidewalk in front of the Standard Restaurant — with stab wounds to his buttocks.

“The whole key to this is to get community involvement so that we foster that trust and fairness that I think we’re losing right now nationwide. It just opens up that dialogue so we’re all kind of on the same page, solving our problems together,” said Guilderland Police Chief Daniel McNally of the newly formed committee that will carry out the governor’s order to reform and reinvent the town’s police department.

Mall brawls, a problem that had ceased with the shutdown of Crossgates Mall, has reemerged as mall stores with outdoor entrances reopen.

As the governor is requiring municipal police departments to come up with reform plans based on community input, Guilderland’s deputy chief, Curtis Cox, says his department has always welcomed public input, and already trains on strategies like de-escalation and has an anti-racial-profiling policy.

Someone at the City Mission has contracted the coronavirus disease. The county’s health department is working with support from the county’s Department of Social Services to see that people who are homeless or in shelters can be quarantined and not put others at risk. And the sheriff is ready to open a homeless shelter in a wing of the county’s jail.

GUILDERLAND — A 34-year-old Albany man was charged today with second-degree unlawful imprisonment and two counts of fourth-degree stalking at Crossgates Mall in Guilderland.

Pyramid Management will pay the Guilderland Police Department the cost of hiring two new officers in exchange for the department’s increasing to full-time two officers’ patrols at Crossgates Mall, paid for by the force itself. The officers who patrol the mall are detectives and paid more than new hires. 

The mall is no less safe than anywhere else, said Curtis Cox, deputy chief of the Guilderland Police, “with our presence and with the security presence, and with all the different initiatives we’re doing.” He added that he hopes people will not stay away from the mall because of a few incidents. “We’d hate to see people discouraged,” he said. 

New York State Police say telephone calls are being made in the Capital Region by people identifying themselves as state police and requesting personal information.

The number the individuals are calling from shows on caller ID as that of a state-police station, although the calls are not originating from the station.