Updated, 7:06 p.m. | A crowd of more than 300 Hasidic Jewish residents began a protest in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, on Friday afternoon to express anger over the assault and robbery of a 16-year-old Jewish man early Friday morning. The protesters marched from the scene of the crime, at Empire Boulevard and Albany Avenue, to the 71st Precinct, and then up New York Avenue to Eastern Parkway, one of the neighborhood’s main corridors, where protesters blocked traffic. They were briefly stopped at Kingston Avenue from going forward by a line of police officers who stood arm-to-arm. After the protesters shouted for a while longer, traffic was reopened on the parkway at 6:10 p.m. and the crowd gradually dispersed around 6:45 p.m. Read more …
Category:
Police and Fire
May 16, 2008, 10:29 am
What’s ‘Even Worse’ About Buying Fake Handbags?
Anti-counterfeiting ads will begin running on pay phones in Times Square and Chinatown on Monday.New York City is starting an advertising campaign on Monday concentrated on pay phones in Times Square and Chinatown to educate tourists and residents about the social costs of counterfeit and pirated goods.
The ads, simple designs of red and black text and images against a yellow and white background, carry the words “The Real Price of Counterfeit Goods” on the bottom. One of the ads reads, “When you buy counterfeit goods, you support child labor, drug trafficking, organized crime and even worse.”
So what’s even worse?
The ads don’t say directly. Terrorism?
Law enforcement and government officials continue to emphasize the connection between terrorism, piracy and counterfeiting. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey recently told Silicon Valley Read more …
May 12, 2008, 4:17 pm
A Slain Officer’s Tale of a Werewolf Who Fights Crime
In March of last year, Nicholas Pekearo celebrated with his editor over dinner at Penny Feathers restaurant in Greenwich Village: his third novel, one about a crime-fighting werewolf, would be accepted for publication. It could, the two men agreed, be the first in a series.
Four days later, just blocks away, Mr. Pekearo, 28, was fatally shot while working as an auxiliary police officer — one of three men killed on March 14, 2007, in a rampage by David R. Garvin, a former marine.
The editor, Eric Raab, kept his promise from the dinner, even though they had never signed a formal contract. Now, 14 months later, the novel, “The Wolfman,” is being released on Tuesday by Tor Books, an imprint of Macmillan that focuses on science fiction, fantasy and horror.
Read more …
May 12, 2008, 2:58 pm
A Mother Dead on a Brooklyn Street
The body of a woman who had been slashed to death was discovered on a street in Brooklyn on Monday, about 30 feet from a car where her infant son was found sitting unharmed, the police said. The woman, identified as Iasha Bristol, 27, of Brooklyn, was slashed across her throat, the police said. She was discovered at the corner of Hart Street and Lewis Avenue, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.
Read more …
May 7, 2008, 4:32 pm
Bell Protesters Block Traffic Across City
The Rev. Al Sharpton and several hundred protesters gathered outside police headquarters in Lower Manhattan, then blocked traffic entering Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge. The protest was one of several across the city. (Photo: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times)Updated, 10:46 p.m. | Several hundred protesters briefly shut down traffic at entrances to the Queensboro Bridge, the Triborough Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge and the Holland Tunnel and Queens-Midtown Tunnel this afternoon as part of a coordinated series of protests over the acquittal of three New York City police detectives in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell in 2006. Read more …
May 1, 2008, 9:14 am
Demolition to Resume at Building Where Firefighters Died
Inside the former Deutsche Bank building in the process of deconstruction on Aug. 14, 2007, four days before work was stopped because of a deadly fire. (Photo: David W. Dunlap/The New York Times) Enlarge this image. 
More decontamination and abatement workers will be reporting for duty at the ravaged former Deutsche Bank building opposite ground zero, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation said, after the city Department of Buildings lifted a prohibition on Wednesday that had been in force since a deadly fire in the tower last summer.
The practical effect of the city’s decision on Wednesday is that decontamination chambers can be used throughout the building, rather than on the ground floor alone.
That will effectively allow the work force to grow to 300 from 200.
Read more …
April 30, 2008, 12:34 pm
U.S. Court Rejects New York Gun Lawsuit
A federal appeals court dismissed New York City’s blanket lawsuit against the gun industry on Wednesday, ruling that a relatively new federal law protects gunmakers against third-party litigation.
Read more …
April 29, 2008, 5:39 pm
A Little Stop-and-Frisk May Turn Up a Little Pot
The number of people arrested for small amounts of marijuana in New York City has increased tenfold in the past decade, with most of the arrests occurring after the police either searched suspects or pressured them into emptying their bags or pockets and displaying the drug during a stop-and-frisk, a report [pdf] said on Tuesday.
Read more …
April 29, 2008, 4:10 pm
Both Sides Are Heard in Police-Air Monitor Debate
Industrial hygienists, educators, residents and others testified at a City Council hearing on Tuesday against a bill that would make the New York the first city in the nation to require certain chemical, biological and radiation detectors to be registered with the Police Department.
Read more …
April 25, 2008, 5:00 pm
Verdict Shocks Sean Bell’s Family
Video
At 3:30 p.m., Nicole Paultre Bell’s father, Les Paultre, went to the local grocery for soda and trash bags. In a store aisle, holding his items, he spent about 10 minutes calmly but firmly describing his family’s reaction to the verdict from Friday morning: first shock, then outrage, then just disappointment in the justice system.
“We just all gasped, like, ‘Wow, how could you throw out this whole case?’ That’s basically what the judge did. He just threw out this whole case,” he said.
“If that was the judge’s son in the car would he have the same reaction to that, or the same verdict?”
“We’re not going to give up,” he said. “We’re going to keep pushing forward because Sean did not die in vain, and these young men should not have been stopped in the first place.”
Read more …
April 25, 2008, 4:32 pm
Detectives’ Union Punishes Daily News
The Detectives’ Endowment Association exacted revenge on The Daily News today for what the union called unfavorable coverage of Michael Oliver, one of the three detectives tried in the Sean Bell case, by barring the paper’s journalists from a news conference.
Read more …
April 25, 2008, 3:36 pm
Queens Prosecutor’s Remarks on Lost Case
The Queens district attorney, Richard A. Brown, spoke this afternoon at his office about the acquittals of the three detectives in the Sean Bell shooting trial. These are his remarks as released by his office: Read more …
April 25, 2008, 2:06 pm
Remembering Columbia, 1968
Police forced Columbia University students out of Hamilton Hall on May 22, 1968, ending the students’ occupation in the building. (Photo: Larry C. Morris/The New York Times)Columbia University’s campus was eerie that night. Japanese music drifted from Fayerweather Hall, one of the occupied buildings, and a sitar played ancient peace into the cold darkness. Protesters moved furtively in the shadows, and down the quadrangle hundreds of police officers formed a skirmish line.
Tensions had been building for a week over a protest against what thousands of students and even many faculty members regarded as racism and militarism by Columbia. Five campus buildings had been seized by radical students, a dean had been taken hostage briefly and the university had been shut down.
Read more …
April 25, 2008, 1:59 pm
Reaction From Detectives and Sharpton
The detectives who were acquitted, Gescard F. Isnora, left, Marc Cooper and Michael Oliver, with Michael J. Palladino, president of the Detectives’ Endowment Association. (Photo: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times)Updated, 4:45 p.m. | The three detectives who were acquitted spoke briefly at a news conference this afternoon at the Detectives’ Endowment Association at the union’s offices in Lower Manhattan, thanking Justice Arthur J. Cooperman for his verdict, around the same time that the Rev. Al Sharpton was denouncing it on the radio.
Read more …
April 25, 2008, 10:21 am
Bloomberg and Kelly Statements on Acquittals
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly issued separate statements on the acquittals in the Sean Bell case.
Read more …
April 25, 2008, 8:57 am
The Scene Outside the Courthouse
The crowd gathered at the Queens Criminal Court building reacted on Friday morning to the verdict in the Sean Bell shooting trial. (Photo: Brendan McDermid/Reuters)Updated, 10:55 a.m. | The crowd is all but dispersed. A few stragglers are leaving with their signs. Some are still talking to reporters with television cameras. Most of the people still here are reporters and the most vocal activists. The Rev. Al Sharpton, the Bell family and other figures in the case are long gone. Traffic is back to normal on Queens Boulevard.
Read more …
April 25, 2008, 6:30 am
Reader Comments: The Sean Bell Verdict
Updated, April 26 | Seventeen months to the day since two bullets from a swarm of 50 fired by the police killed Sean Bell, the judge in the case, Justice Arthur J. Cooperman of State Supreme Court in Queens, ruled that the detectives were not guilty on all felony and misdemeanor counts. Read the full coverage and the text of the verdict [pdf].
We invite you to read the comments below that were submitted by hundreds of readers after the verdict.
For practical reasons, we have closed this thread to further comments, but comments are welcome on related City Room posts, about the scene outside the courthouse, the statements of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, Read more …
April 24, 2008, 5:45 pm
In Reversal, Death Benefits Are Approved for Auxiliary Officers
<img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/03/15/nyregion/