Five-year-old boy turns in ring found on North Ferry
When your dad has worked with a police department, you grow up knowing you can’t break the law — and guess what? People are expected under the law to turn in found property, according to Shelter Island Police.
That’s why Rex Miller, 5, son of John and Emily Miller of Shelter Island and New York City, understood that the right he found on North Ferry about two weeks ago had to be turned over to police. Rex surrendered the ring to Shelter Island Police Officer Walter Richards Friday afternoon. (Police asked that the ring not be described to prevent false claims. Call 749-0600 if you think the ring is yours.)
Newsman John Miller, Rex’s dad, left journalism for a time to work for William Bratton when Mr. Bratton was New York City police commissioner from 1994 to 1996; he followed Mr. Bratton to California, serving him there during Mr. Bratton’s tenure as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 2002 to 2009. Mr. Miller was chief for the Counter-Terrorism and Criminal Intelligence Bureau, which included the Major Crimes Division, and the Emergency Services Division and the Special Investigations Section (SIS). He also worked as assistant director of public affairs for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Rex was crawling on the floor of the cabin on a North Ferry boat bound for the Island when he found the ring. It was very dirty and impossible to tell whether it had any value, Ms. Miller said.
She called Julie Ben-Susan at North Ferry, who inquired of Shelter Island Police whether there were any reports of a missing ring. Police said the ring needed to be brought to them so they could investigate and try to determine its origin.
Ms. Miller cleaned the ring and discovered that, while it was light in weight, it just might be something more than a trinket from a Cracker Jack box. A jeweler in Manhattan confirmed that its value is about $1,000. Her next stop was the Shelter Island police station.
“We’re hoping we can find the right owner,” Ms. Miller said. “Someone is very sad” to have lost it, she said.
Just how long police will hold the ring awaiting the owner to claim it isn’t certain, Officer Richards said. But one way or another, Rex will eventually hear from police — either to learn that someone has claimed the ring or that Rex is free to come and get it.
If the ring eventually becomes Rex’s, the family will hold it to pay for something in Rex’s future, his mother said.
