A man accused of breaking into one of Brooklyn's oldest pharmacies before dawn last week led NYPD officers on a helicopter-tracked pursuit that stretched roughly 13 miles across two boroughs before he surrendered on a Queens sidewalk. Police say 28-year-old Ralph Wilson fled Neergaard Pharmacy in Park Slope with about $2,200 in cash and roughly 100 pills before officers arrived, only to be handcuffed hours later at 65th Avenue and 110th Street in Forest Hills.
According to the New York Post, NYPD responded to a 911 call about a burglary in progress at Neergaard Pharmacy, located at 120 7th Ave. in Park Slope, at around 4:30 a.m. on August 12. Police sources told the outlet that Wilson had already fled the scene by the time officers arrived, wearing a surgical mask and dark sweatshirt. Detectives used a description of the suspect to help locate him, and the NYPD Aviation Unit picked up the chase from the air, tracking Wilson with helicopter cameras as he made his way toward Queens.
The aviation unit that hovered over Wilson during the pursuit traces its roots back to 1929, when it became one of the world's first police air wings, and it still flies out of Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, a former naval air station, according to Vertical Magazine. Its Bell 429 helicopters carry Wescam MX-10 electro-optical and infrared camera turrets along with Trakkabeam searchlights, per Aviation International News — technology that let air crews keep continuous eyes on Wilson even as he crossed from Brooklyn into Queens.
A 138-Year-Old Neighborhood Institution Targeted
Neergaard Pharmacy, founded in 1888, is recognized as the oldest family-owned drugstore in Brooklyn and has anchored Park Slope for well over a century, including a longtime 24-hour storefront on 5th Avenue, according to 6sqft. Police sources say Wilson allegedly made off with oxycodone, codeine and Xanax during the break-in, the same account notes.
Those three drugs carry different weight under state law. Oxycodone and codeine formulations are classified as Schedule II controlled substances due to their high potential for abuse, while Xanax falls under the less-restrictive Schedule IV, according to New York Public Health Law cited by NYSenate.gov. Federal rules also require registered pharmacies to report significant losses of controlled substances to the DEA within one business day, per U.S. Pharmacist.
Suspect Surrendered After the Chase Ended in Forest Hills
Wilson surrendered to officers at 65th Avenue and 110th Street in Queens, where he was handcuffed and arrested, ending a chase that covered about 13 miles from the pharmacy. Police charged him with burglary and possession of a controlled substance. Wilson has nine prior arrests, including one tied to five burglaries in 2015 and a felony assault charge stemming from a 2016 incident on Rikers Island that led to charges filed in 2017, according to police sources cited by the same report.
Under New York Penal Law § 140.20, third-degree burglary is a Class D non-violent felony punishable by up to seven years in state prison, according to Saland Law. Separately, unauthorized possession of prescription narcotics can range from a Class A misdemeanor carrying up to 364 days in jail to a felony carrying multi-year prison exposure, depending on quantity and intent, per David Mejia Colgan, Esq.
Burglary Trends in the 78th Precinct
The 78th Precinct, which patrols Park Slope and Prospect Park from its station house at 65 6th Avenue and is recognizable as the exterior filming location for “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” per NYC.gov, has recorded 60 burglaries so far this year, down from 71 during the same period last year — a 16 percent decline, according to NYPD data cited by the Post. Citywide, burglary is down 15 percent this year, with 6,589 incidents recorded so far compared to 7,760 at the same point in 2025, the same NYPD figures show.
The pharmacy break-in also lands amid a string of recent commercial burglaries across the borough. In July, NYPD Crime Stoppers flagged an 11-incident pattern spanning six Brooklyn commands, including the 78th Precinct, in which a burglar entered offices and safes through basement doors, as Hoodline previously reported. And in April, an early-morning burglary along 7th Avenue in Park Slope saw a suspect smash front-door glass at around 3:33 a.m. to get inside, according to Hoodline's earlier coverage of that incident. It remains unclear whether detectives suspect any connection between Wilson's case and those broader patterns, and whether the stolen cash and pills were fully recovered has not been disclosed.
