Results tagged “nypd”

The off-duty officer who fatally ran over a woman hailing a cab in Brooklyn on a rainy night in September pleaded not guilty to vehicular manslaughter, driving while intoxicated, and other charges yesterday. Officer Andrew Kelly, a seven-year veteran assigned to the 68th Precinct, was driving with another off-duty officer and three civilians when he struck Vionique Valnord, 32, around 1 a.m. on September 27th.

It comes as no surprise that the off-duty NYPD detective who fatally struck an elderly pedestrian early Friday morning in the Bronx has an alcohol problem. Detective Kevin (Spike) Spellman had a blood alcohol level of 0.21 percent—more than twice the legal limit—almost six hours after the accident. Now it's being reported that this isn't the first time booze has caused problems for Spellman and others.

In late September, two black detectives and one Pakistani detective were going door-to-door in Gravesend, Brooklyn, canvassing residents to investigate a possible hate crime. They were dressed in suits, not uniforms, and not one of them is white, so naturally someone assumed they must be pretending to be police officers. The Shomrim Jewish Community patrol raced to the scene, and 911 was called. When the detectives heard the call over the radio they identified themselves to the dispatcher, but a fight almost broke out when local cops arrived.

Former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik faces a lengthy prison sentence and almost $5 million in fines if convicted on all 16 counts of fraud, conspiracy, and corruption. But sources tell the Daily News he's been offered a plea deal that would get him out of jail in under three years. Kerik is facing three federal trials; the first, set to begin on November 9th, accuses Kerik of letting a mob-controlled contracting firm renovate his apartment for free, while telling city investigators that that same firm had no criminal ties.

The off-duty NYPD detective who fatally struck an elderly pedestrian early Friday morning in the Bronx had a blood alcohol level of 0.21 percent almost six hours after the accident. Despite delaying the test for hours by refusing to cooperate without a warrant, 22-year NYPD veteran Kevin Spellman, 42, was still very intoxicated. (The legal limit is 0.08 percent.) Spellman's alcohol level was certainly much higher at the time of the crash, but because people metabolize alcohol at different rates, it's anyone's guess how wasted he was at 6:30 a.m.

Hate crime task force detectives Stephon Garland and Gregory Wilson, who are black, and detective Faisal Khan, who is Pakistani, were going door-to-door in Gravesend, Brooklyn, canvassing residents to investigate a possible hate crime. They were each wearing suits, and soon enough 15 members of the Shomrim Jewish Community patrol pulled up, accusing them of impersonating police officers. Things got heated, and white uniformed cops from the 61st Precinct arrived at the scene to handle the situation. And handle it they did!

The notoriously Luddite NYPD—they still use typewriters for most paperwork—has a technological visionary in their midst. Though most people know the Internet is just a passing fad, crazy Capt. Kenneth Corey at the 76th Precinct in Brooklyn thinks it should be used to communicate with concerned citizens. So he frequently sends electronic mail, or "e-mail," to a growing subscriber list, informing them of local crime news. But is the NYPD brass going to stand for this? What do they pay spokesman Paul Browne for?

Following the pedicab crash off the Williamsburg Bridge earlier this year, the city decided to try to get those pedicab laws in order. With less than a month left to pass an inspection to obtain a license, there are reportedly only 25 of around 1,000 pedicab operators who have done so as of earlier this month.

The 24-hour crackdown on drivers using handheld electronic devices ended last Friday at midnight with 7,529 tickets issued. That total edges out the number of tickets issued in August (7,432) but still falls short of the record 9,016 tickets written during the March sting. Is the NYPD phoning it in, or are New Yorkers getting the message?

Someone at the 32nd Police Precinct in Harlem defaced a Post-It note with a racist lettering, but the NYPD didn't do much about it, one black officer says. Last month Officer Carla Thomas found that someone wrote "KKK" on a Post-It note she kept on a straw mat in her office; she had previously written on the note that the mat was "symbolic of African tradition and history." She filed a complaint with the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, but claims the office only investigated after others complained about the incident. Since then, the investigation was closed without finding out who was responsible.

Have the NYPD raised a SkyWatch over Canal Street to curb the alleged "spike in crime" in the area, or are they cracking down on illegal vendors and counterfeiters again?

New troubles are bubbling up for the NYPD: Internal Affairs and Prosecutors have identified "as many as two dozen cases in the past year in which cops allegedly made false statements involving routine arrests," according to the Post. This is a sharp increase over previous years, when one or two such cases would be discovered and prosecuted.

After a successful pilot program, the NYPD is adding a new siren called The Rumbler to over 150 patrol cars; this bad boy blasts a palpable sound wave that can be felt up to 200 feet away. According to The Rumbler's manufacturer [pdf], the siren has "the distinct advantage of penetrating and shaking solid materials, allowing vehicle operators and nearby pedestrians to FEEL the sound waves and perhaps even see their effects through a shaking rearview mirror." The company also warns that the siren and speakers "may cause hearing damage," and those who use it are encouraged to wear ear protection.

This weekend there were reports of a bomb going off on South 3rd Street in Williamsburg, during the early morning hours of Sunday. Now the Daily News has more details, confirming that the block between Roebling and Havemeyer was the stage for an explosion around 12:30 a.m. on Sunday.

Ever seen a Vespa with a parking ticket on it? It seems most owners—and the NY Post is looking at you Matthew Broderick and Liev Schreiber—are going to great measures to avoid getting ticketed for illegally parking. But beware, Vespians, the paper reports that "Cops are cracking down on hipster Vespa owners who've taken to removing the vehicle-identification numbers from their rides."

The Post reports, "The NYPD's entire fleet of Highway Patrol officers was pulled from their posts and rushed to a Bronx firing range yesterday because of a malfunction discovered with their shotguns, sources said." The malfunction, discovered a training session at the firing range, involves "problems with the firing pin that prevented the gun from discharging" and "All 75 Mossberg 590A1 shotguns had to be turned in for the older Ithaca 37s."

More than 85% of people stopped and frisked by the NYPD are released without an arrest or summons. But just because the police let you go, doesn't mean they forget all about you! The NYPD maintains a database of more than 500,000 people stopped, questioned, frisked, and released each year. And Councilman Peter Vallone wants the department to hit delete.

About a year ago rapper Lil Wayne was in Manhattan court claiming his tour bus was totally pot free after he performed at the Beacon Theater... a venue where surely the Allman Brothers have smoked a little grass on occasion. Anyway, the rapper allegedly tossed a Louis Vuitton bag with a gun inside when the NYPD approached the bus, which got him charged with "attempted weapon possession."

A Manhattan teenager with no criminal record is suing the city for $1 million because cops arrested and taunted him as "Plaxico Burress" after he got shot in a robbery. Christian Dudley doesn't even own a gun, but that didn't matter to the officers who collared him after the Harlem mugging earlier this year. He was arrested in a Washington Heights hospital where he was waiting to get the bullet removed from the back of his knee—instead of surgery, he got dragged to the precinct on a charge of criminal possession of a weapon. And that's where the fun really started.

This Chinatown surveillance video depicts a heated altercation between an NYPD traffic agent and a car owner on Lafayette Street around 3:15 p.m. on October 8th. The video appears to show irate traffic agent Twana Chapman striking driver Qiang Nian Zhu after he tried to cover his registration sticker, so Chapman could not scan it. A crowd gathers, and Chapman is seen getting in one bystander's face, as another traffic agent pulls her away. But because there is no audio, it's not possible to verify an allegation that Chapman also made racist remarks.

It's time for the city to come back to the well and conduct another cell phone ticket blitz. Why, it seems like only yesterday that the NYPD last cracked down on drivers using cell phones, but it was actually mid-August. New York State just wrapped a lucrative four-day cell phone crackdown on the Thruway, issuing 903 tickets to drivers in a mission called, no joke, "Operation Hang Up II.'' Not to be outdone, the city's sting will start at 12:01 a.m. Thursday and last 24 hours.

It's so hard to keep up with Gang Initiation Day! Is it on Easter, or around Halloween, or both... or neither. Cops are on alert again as the annual Halloween rumor settles upon us, which typically alerts the city of a Bloods-induced bloodbath that has potential new members slashing hundreds of innocent people. Of course, the NYPD notes that this is somewhat of an urban legend, and actual gang bloodshed hasn't gone down since 1995.

Cats do the darndest things—like hang out in SUV engines and wait for cops to rescue 'em. Seriously, an orange and white cat had be to extracted by Emergency Service Unit detectives when a SUV driver discovered the feline in the vehicle's front hood.

Hey, whaddaya know—shooting 5,000 volts of electricity at somebody's chest could adversely affect the heart! Manufacturer Taser International Inc. has issued a warning about Taser chest-shots, suggesting that law enforcement officers aim their Tasers at perpetrators' backs, arms, or abdomens. In response to the warning, the NYPD brass has formally ordered officers not to shoot Tasers at suspects' chests.

The NYPD may have time to ticket folks drinking a non-life-threatening lager on their stoop, but they are way too busy to ticket jaywalkers. At least, that's what Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday, suggesting New Yorkers practice common sense when crossing the street illegally.

Yesterday a grand jury voted to indict NYPD Officer Andrew Kelly on charges of second-degree vehicular manslaughter and driving while intoxicated in an accident last month that killed a woman who was trying to hail a cab. If convicted, Kelly faces up to seven years in prison. Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes says that Kelly, 30, will also face trial on other charges, including speeding.

Are you a chronic jaywalker? Allegedly some cops don't even know how to write a jaywalking ticket — the practice is so widespread in New York that people rarely get punished for it until, as the NY Post points out, they are pinned beneath a double-decker tour bus. One former cop explains, "Jaywalking is an urban cultural issue. There are certain cities where jaywalking has been accepted for 50 years or more, so to stop it is like trying to stop the tide from coming in. You can't address the whole culture through policing."

NYPD Officer Alex Kelly has been indicted on vehicular manslaughter and DWI charges in connection with the late September accident that killed pedestrian Vionique Valnord as she tried to hail a cab. Of course, Kellly managed to postpone taking a blood alcohol test for over seven hours, so he scored a perfect zero on the test, which is going to make it hard for prosecutors to make the DWI rap stick.

Michael Pigott, the NYPD lieutenant who gave the order to fire a Taser that resulted in the death of an emotionally disturbed man, took responsibility for his actions - to the very end.

Bronx resident Sanija Kurtovic is eight months pregnant, and she got quite a scare the other day when her parked car was sideswiped as she was about to get out. But what's even scarier is that the vehicle that hit her was an NYPD cruiser, and the driver allegedly fled the scene. Kurtovic says that after her car was hit, she ran up to Officer Shirley Perez-Romero, who was stopped at a red light. But the cop allegedly played dumb, acting as if she didn't realize an accident had occured. Kurtovic says the officer told her she would do a U-turn and file a report, but instead Officer Perez-Romero just drove off.