Thursday, November 20, 2014

Police Charge Teen in Hate Crime Attack, Seek Two Others


A teenager has been arrested in connection with an alleged anti-Semitic attack in Brooklyn Monday afternoon.


The 15-year-old is being charged with assault as a hate crime.


Police say they’re still looking for two other people.



They say the trio approached a 53-year-old man at the Marcy Avenue subway station in Williamsburg, made anti-Semitic statements and hit him in the head with an umbrella.


“It leaves for a very, very bad feeling of social morale in the city and on the subway,” said one person at the Marcy Avenue station. “Riding the subway should not be a life-or-death situation.”


“It’s pretty unbelievable to me that there’s this kind of bigotry that’s happening, and it’s really upsetting as person, as a minority, that these things are still happening, and I feel like I have to kind of watch my back,” said another.


According to a community activist, the victim is a rabbi visiting from Israel and was on his way to receive cancer treatment.


The victim was not seriously hurt.


Anyone with information on the case should contact the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS, or text CRIMES and then enter TIP577, or visit http://ift.tt/17IHIZe.





NEWS – NY1




http://ift.tt/1uVXE5D

via Great Local News: New York http://ift.tt/1iZiLP1

CUNY to spend $35M over three years on remediation classes


New York’s public-high-school students are so ill- prepared for college that the city is investing an extra $ 35 million in remedial programs to help them make the grade.


Officials at the City University of New York say they’ll expand a booster program to serve 9,000 additional incoming freshmen at seven colleges over the next three years.


As of this year, 4,420 students are getting the extra help.


Only 32 percent of city high-school graduates met CUNY standards this year, according to Department of Education figures, up 1 percent from 2013.


CUNY Chancellor James Milliken touted the university’s partnership with the city, but said the public-school system must “get better at” educating students.


“Obviously, when 80 percent of students who come to community colleges are not fully college-ready and have some remediation [requirements], we have work to do on this,” Milliken said at an Association for a Better New York breakfast Wednesday.


“We need more of this connectivity,” he added. “We’re joined at the hip of the New York City public schools.”


CUNY launched the remediation program in 2007 during the Bloomberg administration to prep students seeking associates degrees who couldn’t pass at least one required course in math, reading or writing in high school.


Students who enrolled in the program were more likely to stay in college, add more credits and graduate more quickly, according to a 2013 study.


DOE officials said the graduation rate is actually double for those in the program than for students fending on their own.


“There is a large need for programs like these to make sure that students who graduated without the skills needed to succeed at the next level are prepared,” said an official.


University officials expect that the program will serve 22 percent of all CUNY freshmen by 2017.


Nearly 275,000 students enrolled at CUNY schools this fall, a record and an increase of more than 40 percent since 2000, according to university officials.





Yahoo Local News – New York Post




http://ift.tt/1uVGCo7

via Great Local News: New York http://ift.tt/1iZiLP1

Bratton gets Billy clubbed with 47% approval rating in poll


Maybe he should stop taking orders from Al Sharpton.


Police Commissioner Bill Bratton’s approval rating is in the toilet at 47 percent — compared with predecessor Ray Kelly’s stellar 75 percent rating when the use of stop-and-frisk was near its peak, according to a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday.


Quinnipiac University polling expert Mickey Carroll pointed the finger at Sharpton and Mayor de Blasio for their constant criticism of the NYPD and its stop-and-frisk policy.


“Sharpton is a polarizing figure, very divisive and he has a high profile now,” Carroll said.


“When de Blasio ran, he was knocking stop-and-frisk, and then [Eric] Garner got killed on Staten Island in a [police] chokehold,” Carroll told The Post.


A law-enforcement source also said Sharpton has had a major influence on de Blasio.


“He’s part of the framework of the de Blasio administration. Under Kelly and [ex-Mayor Mike] Bloomberg, Sharpton couldn’t get to first base. He was a non-entity. Now he’s palling around with Obama at the White House. And he’s very anti-cop, as we all know,” the source said.


The source also cited the embarrassing “summit” at City Hall on July 31, when Sharpton sat on a dais and lectured Bratton and de Blasio about police policy.


“He sat in with the mayor and police commissioner during that press conference and he embarrassed [Bratton], telling him how to run his department essentially,” the source said.


In a Quinnipiac poll released in January 2013, Kelly scored his highest approval rating ever, 75 percent, when stop-and-frisk was still a major tactic.


In the new poll, 35 percent of voters disapproved of Bratton.


While Bratton’s popularity rating is the lowest for an NYPD commissioner in 12 years, New Yorkers had a more positive view of the police, approving of the job cops are doing citywide by 54 percent to 39 percent.


And huge percentages of voters of all races still believe crime is a big problem, despite record- low rates for murder and many other offenses.


A total of 86 percent of New York City voters, including 82 percent of whites, 87 percent of blacks and 93 percent of Hispanics, say crime is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem, the poll found.


The de Blasio administration defended Bratton.


“Mayor de Blasio knows that Commissioner Bratton is the finest police leader around, and he is working with the commissioner and the NYPD to continue to bring police and community together, while also keeping New York City the safest big city in the world,” spokesman Phil Walzak said.





Yahoo Local News – New York Post




http://ift.tt/1uANlSZ

via Great Local News: New York http://ift.tt/1iZiLP1

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Man stabbed in the stomach at his UES apartment


A man was viciously stabbed in the stomach at his Upper East Side apartment building Wednesday night, police said.


The victim, who cops describe as in his 20’s, was with his girlfriend when another man confronted him inside of the Isaac Houses at 1830 1st Avenue, and stabbed him once in the stomach and then again in the arm just after 8 p.m., police sources said.


“He was bleeding real bad, He was cut from arm to bone,” said eyewitness Yolanda Abbott, 34, who lives in the building. “He was holding his guts and screaming.”


The man was rushed to Presbyterian Hospital unconscious but he is expected to live, according to authorities.


No arrests have been made, police said.





Yahoo Local News – New York Post




http://ift.tt/1AllIlQ

via Great Local News: New York http://ift.tt/1iZiLP1

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Daily Blotter


Brooklyn


A 27-year-old woman was sexually abused on a Williamsburg street, police sources said.


The victim had just left the Sweet Science bar on Johnson and Graham avenues on Nov. 9 at about 2:30 a.m. when she was approached by the fiend, police said.


The attacker grabbed her by the neck and covered her mouth before scratching her face, sources said.


As the woman tried to escape his clutches, the creep reached up her dress and touched her genitals, police sources said.


The Brooklyn Special Victims Unit is investigating the incident as a felony sex abuse case.


A suspect description was not immediately available.




Manhattan


A subway conductor was hit with a hurled object while his southbound No. 1 train barreled through Tribeca, sources said.


An assailant tossed a box of wooden coffee stirrers at the moving train, hitting the conductor in the face at the Canal Street station on Nov. 10 at about 10:35 p.m., law enforcement sources said.


The 47-year-old victim suffered minor cuts, authorities said.


The attacker fled on foot and was last seen wearing a red jacket. He is believed to be in his 20s.




A woman was arrested for driving drunk in Washington Heights after ramming into a marked police car that was pulled off to the side on the Harlem River Drive, police said.


Margaret Young, 57, of The Bronx, was heading northbound on the highway at about 7:30 p.m. Monday when she slammed into the patrol car that had stopped to help a disabled motorist near the West 178th Street exit, police said.


Young and the cop suffered minor injuries. Both were taken to St. Luke’s Hospital in stable condition.


Young was charged with DWI and colliding with an emergency vehicle, police said.


The driver has no prior arrests, police sources said.




A bumbling bandit tried but failed to rob a bank while claiming to have a gun in Tribeca, police sources said.


The suspect allegedly walked into the Valley National Bank on Franklin Street just before 4 p.m. on Nov. 12 and passed a 25-year-old teller a note stating, “I have a gun. Put the money in the bag.”


Then he barked, “Give me all hundreds. I ain’t playing with you, yo, give me all hundreds. I ain’t playing. I have a gun,” sources added.


The teller hesitated and the goon fled empty-handed, sources said.


The bandit was last seen wearing a black jacket, a skullcap and white sneakers while going north on Church Street, police sources said.


He stands about 5-foot-11.


No one in the bank was injured.




Cops have released additional images of a man in a religious headdress — and a shirt open to his navel — who is one of three suspects in a purse theft, cops said.


The trio sidled up to a 26-year-old woman seated at a bar inside the Hotel Chantelle at Ludlow and Delancey streets on the Lower East Side on Sept. 20, police said.


The victim’s bag was hanging on her chair just before the trio disappeared into the bathroom, where the purse was later found, cops added.


The woman’s phone and MetroCard were gone.


Surveillance video shows something in the hands of the headdress-wearing suspect, police said.




Staten Island


A Woodrow man was arrested after sending his teen son to get illegal pills from his car, authorities said.


Carmelo Salvaggio, 36, told his 14-year-old son to go to the vehicle, which was parked on Bloomingdale Road and Marisa Circle on Nov. 11 at about 9:55 a.m., a Criminal Court complaint states.


The son retrieved 50 pain killers, acetaminophen hydrocodone, which were inside a plastic bag, police sources said.


“I sent him to the car to get the pills. I don’t have a pill bottle,” Salvaggio allegedly told police.


It’s unclear how the cops learned of the incident, but Salvaggio was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and criminal possession of controlled substance.


The case against his son, whose name was not released because he is a juvenile, will be heard in Family Court.




A former firefighter was busted for having a gun in his van and three more firearms in his Tottenville home, authorities said.


Glen Midbo, 56, was caught with a loaded .40-caliber Smith and Wesson handgun and 10 cartridges of ammunition inside a tackle box in his van on Veterans Road West and Arthur Kill Road last Saturday at about 2:10 p.m., a Criminal Court complaint states.


A search of his home turned up three rifles and one shotgun under his bed, police sources said.


Midbo was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of a fire arm, possession of ammunition and unlawful disposition of rifles or shotguns.





Yahoo Local News – New York Post




http://ift.tt/1tcqlWG

via Great Local News: New York http://ift.tt/1iZiLP1

MTA Activates Winter Operations


The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is activating its winter operations plan for the season.


As part of the plan, the agency uses specialized weather forecasts to help transit officials adjust staffing and prepare snow-fighting equipment as storms approach.


For buses this year, the MTA has new tires and chains, as well improved communications equipment.


It also has a plan to increase planning and collaboration with the Sanitation Department.


Nearly 220 miles of subway tracks that run outdoors will also be winterized, and scraper shoes will be used on some trains to reduce icing on the third rail.


The MTA activates its winter plan every November.


It affects subways, buses and the Staten Island Railway.





NEWS – NY1




http://ift.tt/1qUFVpZ

via Great Local News: New York http://ift.tt/1iZiLP1

Hit-and-run driver slams into off-duty cop, daughter


A hit-and-run driver struck a detective in Brooklyn on Tuesday, led cops on a 4-mile chase and then slammed into another car — injuring an off-duty NYPD sergeant and her 14-year-old daughter, who is in critical condition, police sources said.


The off-duty cop and her daughter were trapped inside the wreckage and had to be extricated with hydraulic tools.


“They were all very bad. They were hurt,” said witness Randi Raymond, 55.


The unidentified driver “looked panicked” as he tried to run away from the second crash scene on Avenue U near Stuart Street — but was quickly caught and arrested, a witness said.


“It was chaos, pure chaos,” said the witness.


The incident began around 2:50 p.m. at East 42nd Street and Farragut Road in East Flatbush, cops said.


Detectives from the Brooklyn Robbery Squad were staking out a van that fit the description of a suspect vehicle when two men came out of a nearby pharmacy and got into the vehicle, sources said.


Cops tried to stop the van when the driver took off and ran over one detective’s foot, sources said.


The van then sped away, and was racing along Avenue U when it veered into oncoming traffic, clipped a Nissan and tore off its rear bumper — with the impact sending both vehicles hurtling across the street and onto the sidewalk, cops said.


A search was underway for the two van passengers.


Additional reporting by Dana Sauchelli





Yahoo Local News – New York Post




http://ift.tt/1u8HBMB

via Great Local News: New York http://ift.tt/1iZiLP1