As Alphabet City copes with its second stabbing in a week, many are still talking about a chaotic incident last weekend that is said to have increased tension between residents and the police.
A fight involving a father, his son, and a police officer last Saturday grew into a melee that took over Avenue D and spilled into a police station house, said residents of the neighborhood. Videos obtained by The Local offer a glimpse into the clamorous street scene.
The Local spoke with several people living in the Jacob Riis Houses or nearby who said they had heard that a 14-year-old boy and his father were stuck in the head by a police officer. Ashley Serrano, another 14-year-old who was involved in the tussle, said that the father’s face was bruised and cut. “They made his whole face bleed,” she said.
“It was a hot night out there,” said Lieutenant Steve Nusser, one of the officers of Police Service Area 4 who responded to the incident. “There was a fight between a couple people, a crowd of people came over, and the cops I’m sure did something to halt that action, and it escalated from there,” he said. “When the crowd surged, some people came to the PSA [station house] and we had to control the crowd. Some were out of order.” Read more…
Stephen Rex BrownThe sidewalk outside Fine Fare was a bloody mess Sunday morning.
Wondering why there was pool of blood outside the Fine Fare on Avenue C Sunday morning? Here’s your answer: One of the men injured during Saturday night’s stabbing in East River Park was arrested outside of the grocery store.
The neighborhood’s top police officer, Deputy Inspector John Cappelmann (he was promoted from captain last week) confirmed the sequence of events, saying that the perp fled the park and was found at Avenue C and East Fourth Street. Initially, the police reported that only the suspect found at Fine Fare was arrested, but Inspector Cappelmann revealed that the 59-year-old “victim” ended up in handcuffs, as well.
“It was two people who are acquaintances. They got in a dispute in the park, wound up assaulting each other and both were charged,” Inspector Cappelmann said.
Meanwhile the blood, which was a hot topic of discussion on EV Grieve and Gothamist, has washed away in the rain.
A man was stabbed in a playground in East River Park last night, the police said.
The 59-year-old was near FDR Drive and East Eighth Street at around 8:30 p.m. when he got in a dispute with another man. The argument escalated, and the victim was stabbed in the torso.
Police charged Conrado Speck, 50, with assault with a weapon and criminal possession of a weapon. The victim is expected to survive.
The police are searching for a man who allegedly robbed the HSBC at Second Avenue and East Ninth Street around 45 minutes ago.
An officer at the scene provided The Local with a surveillance image of the suspect, who is seen wearing a black cap and a long-sleeved white shirt. The investigation had just gotten underway, but the police officer said that the suspect passed a note demanding cash, did not show a weapon, and escaped with under $200.
Tim SchreierProtester arrested at Sara D. Roosevelt Park
When we filed our final report on May Day activities in the wee hours of this morning, the police would say only that more than 30 were arrested during yesterday’s demonstrations. The final tally is now in: City Room reports that 34 people were taken into custody and another 52 issued desk appearance tickets.
The photo above is one of Tim Schreier’s newly posted shots from the Wildcat March at Sara D. Roosevelt Park. And arrest videos have also emerged on YouTube. A video posted by Kg4 shows a protester kicking out a police car window from inside of a cruiser. Read more…
A May Day march from Union Square to Wall Street, which some estimated to be over 30,000 people strong, ended with hundreds of participants gathering at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza near Battery Park, and then at Zuccotti Park after they were pushed out of the plaza by police.
The permitted march, which began after Tom Morello and members of his “guitarmy” performed at Union Square, stretched many blocks down Broadway and was both leisurely and boisterous. There was, however, the occasional scuffle: as The Local previously reported, bystanders booed and chanted “Shame!” as a photographer was arrested for climbing atop a food cart to take bird’s-eye photos. The police estimated that there were “above 30” arrests throughout the day, but were not able to give an exact number as of 2 a.m. Read more…
Photos: John Penley. Speaking in first photo: Tuli Kupferberg of The Fugs.
Earlier this morning, we reprinted Ellen Moynihan’s account of the 1990 May Day riots in Tompkins Square Park. Now, let’s look back at John Penley’s photographs of the day, from a collection of his work at N.Y.U.’s Tamiment Library.
Speaking to The Local from his current home in Asheville, N.C., the activist and photographer said he sensed trouble was brewing that night, twenty-two years ago. “I was ready for this one,” he said. “The ’88 riot I wasn’t ready for, but this one I had a lot of film, I had batteries, and I expected stuff to jump off.” He added, “There’s nothing like riots, man, especially as a photojournalist – as long as you don’t get beat up or your cam doesn’t get broken or something bad doesn’t happen to you, you can’t miss with the photos.” Read more…
May Day is almost upon us, and with it will come a citywide carnival of Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.
But what will May Day actually look like in New York City and in the East Village? Will we see orderly marchers proceeding peacefully between police barricades? Or will Wall Street burn, as the graffiti on Avenue A warns? Or should we expect, as Jerry Rubin predicted for the 1972 Democratic National Convention, “ten thousand naked hippies” marching on Wall Street?
Asked to predict the size of the demonstrations, Occupy organizer Marisa Holmes, 25, told The Local that May 1 will be on par with the movement’s fall protests or larger. “It won’t be a general strike but it will be substantial,” said the freelance film editor and graduate student at Hunter College. Read more…
A man took a photograph up a passenger’s skirt while they rode a southbound 4 train arriving in the Union Square station on April 18, police said.
The 24-year-old victim approached officers in the station at around 4:10 p.m. and showed them a photo she had taken of the voyeur. The suspect, who is said to be around five-foot-five and 150 pounds, is wanted for unlawful surveillance.
Narcotics officers arrested nine people inside an apartment in Campos Plaza that contained a loaded 9-millimeter, cocaine, marijuana, shotgun shells and scales.
A police spokesman said that the investigators served the warrant at an apartment at 641 East 13th Street around 5 p.m. on Sunday following a longterm investigation. Three men caught there face charges of criminal possession of a weapon, possession of a controlled substance, and criminally using drug paraphernalia. They are Andrew Hudson, 20, Jose Perez, 21, and Demetrius Blas, 17. The trio all have criminal records, according to a criminal complaint. The others busted in the apartment were released. Read more…
The police closed down Tompkins Square Park tonight after a window of a 7-Eleven was smashed, seemingly by protesters.
Around 9:20 p.m., Tim Pool, a livecaster of Occupy Wall Street events, filmed police cars blocking off Tompkins Square Park. In the video embedded above, Mr. Pool reports hearing that, after the Anarchist Book Fair earlier today, a “black bloc” formed and “there was a lot of property destruction, a few windows broken. We heard a few people tried to smash some Starbucks windows and ‘some Mafioso-looking guys came out with big poles and started swinging them.’” Read more…
Here’s the latest installment of “Police And Thieves,” The Local’s regular roundup of crime. What follows are the latest reports from March 12 to 18, sorted by the type of incident. Plus: Our map of all of crime since Jan. 15.
Trouble on the Trains
Vivienne GucwaThe Astor Place station.
A thief chucked two sneakers at a man and robbed him on March 12. The 44-year-old victim told the police he was sitting on a bench on the northbound platform in the Astor Place station at around 6 a.m. when a man sat beside him and said, “I’m going to kill you if you don’t give me your money.” After getting what he asked for, the suspect reached into his jacket, pulled out the shoe and threw it at the victim, hitting him in the back. The victim alerted a booth clerk, and re-approached the suspect, who had moved up the platform, only to get a shoe hurled at him again.
A guy asked a woman for directions in the Second Avenue subway station and then snatched her cellphone on March 17. The 23-year-old victim said that after she gave the suspect directions at around 9:50 p.m., he grabbed her iPhone 4S from her hand. She gave chase but lost the thief on the street.
After drinking till closing time at Double Down Saloon on March 18, a 27-year-old from Wisconsin passed out on a subway platform. He woke up four hours later and was missing his cellphone as well as the iPhone that he used for browsing the internet. To add insult to injury, when he awoke and tried to report the crime to a booth clerk at the station she wouldn’t help him out. Read more…
Jared MalsinVideo depicting the arrest of Mesiah Hameed. Note: explicit language.
Daniel MaurerA woman protests the arrest of Mesiah Hameed earlier in the day.
Multiple arrests – five of which were witnessed by The Local – occurred this afternoon during a march protesting police brutality organized by the Occupy Wall Street movement. The arrest of a teenager drew outrage when she was carried to a police van with her bra exposed.
Susan Howard, the New York City chapter coordinator for the National Lawyers Guild, said that an estimated 21 people were arrested during Occupy-related activities throughout the day, with “about a dozen” arrested during the march from Zuccotti Park to Union Square. The police were not yet able to confirm a number of arrests.
Videographer Paul Davis, who witnessed the arrest of Mesiah Hameed on Mott Street below Prince Street around 2:50 p.m., said the teenager was obstructing police movement before she was detained. “She was blocking the scooters from going,” he said. “Civil disobedience. Somebody grabbed her, one of the deputy inspectors.” Read more…
More than a thousand people rallied in Union Square on Wednesday evening with the parents of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager who was shot dead in Florida in late February. The protest, dubbed “A Million Hoodies March for Trayvon Martin” on Facebook and elsewhere, attracted an angry and racially diverse crowd of New Yorkers.
“We’re not going to stop until we get justice for Trayvon,” Tracy Martin told the crowd of his son, according to The Lede. “George Zimmerman took Trayvon’s life for nothing.” Mr. Zimmerman, a white Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer, shot the teenager after telling a 911 dispatcher he had seen a “black male” who “looks like he’s up to no good.” A controversial self-defense law has kept him from being charged. Read more…
The Police Department has released stomach-churning footage of alleged Occupy Wall Street demonstrators dumping a disgusting mix of what is said to be human waste in a bank and a stairwell last week.
According to the police department, surveillance cameras captured protesters on March 14 dragging a tub filled with a mix of urine and feces into a public plaza at Nassau and Cedar Streets at 8 p.m. They then poured the concoction down a stairwell. About 20 minutes later, another camera caught a man dumping waste inside of a Chase Bank on Water Street. A witness gave investigators the license plate number of the van allegedly used to haul the smelly brew, and two days later they arrested 25-year-old Jordan Brooks Amos of Philadelphia. Mr. Amos is charged with unlawful possession of noxious matter, aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, and criminal possession of a weapon due to a stun gun that was allegedly in his vehicle.
The gross video was immediately met with shock — and some skepticism — on Twitter.
Jared MalsinA demonstrator taunted officers with a doughnut on a string.
At least one person was injured and another arrested when police confronted Occupy Wall Street demonstrators in Union Square early Wednesday morning.
Shortly after midnight, police moved protesters, some of which had been sleeping in the park since Saturday night, off of the south steps of the square and onto the sidewalk before sweeping through the encampment and rousting reclining protesters.
Police arrested activist Yoni Miller, 18, of Brooklyn, dragging him away by the shoulders. In an interview with The Local moments before his arrest, Mr. Miller said, “I think we will eventually be arrested.” Read more…
Suzanne RozdebaPolice officers at the scene of a bank robbery this morning.
While taking photos for an upcoming story about the loss of parking spaces that will result from N.Y.U.’s proposed expansion (check back soon!), The Local was alerted to a robbery at CitiBank on Laguardia Place near West Third Street.
A police officer at the scene said that at around 9:30 a.m. a white male wearing a black hat, sunglasses and a black jacket flashed a gun at the bank and then fled. A police spokesman did not yet have information regarding whether the suspect escaped with any money.
An hour after the incident officers were still lingering at the scene and barring any customers from entering the bank.
The police are on the hunt for two men who they say sliced two other guys outside of IHOP on March 3.
According to the police, the dispute between the men began at around 6:20 a.m. at the house of pancakes on 14th Street. That’s when things escalated and the 25-year-old and 27-year-old victims were cut with an unknown object.
Both suspects, who are thought to be 20 to 25 years old, then fled the scene.
Here’s The Local’s latest installment of “Police And Thieves,” your weekly roundup of crime. What follows are the latest reports from Feb. 20 to Feb. 27, sorted by the type of incident. Our map of all of crime since Jan. 15 is at bottom.
Robberies
As previously reported, a pair of thieves robbed a woman at gunpoint on Feb. 22.
Two witnesses collared a purse-snatcher after a chase into the subway on Feb. 24. The 25-year-old victim told the police she was at First Avenue and East 10th Street at around 12:15 a.m. when the suspect ran up from behind and tried to grab her purse. When the victim resisted the thief pushed her, ripped the purse from her hand and took off towards the First Avenue L train. As two witnesses gave chase the suspect tossed the purse. The pair then detained the suspect in the subway station until the police arrived. The police said that the suspect had seven prior arrests, including two robberies.
This guy isn’t much of a pal. A 19-year-old told the police she was chatting with her “friend” in the 10th floor stairwell of the Jacob Riis Houses at around 1 a.m. when he grabbed her bag that she had set down on the floor. The victim gave chase, and on the seventh floor the suspect dropped what appeared to be the receiver of a 9-millimeter Smith and Wesson.
A man’s wallet was stolen from Phoenix on Feb. 18. The 22-year-old victim told the police he set his coat down on the floor of the bar on East 13th Street at around 1 a.m. By 9:30 a.m. the next day the thief had made a whopping $8,000 in charges on his account.
A team of burglars ripped off the INA consignment shop on Feb. 20. An employee told the police four women and one guy walked into the store on Bleecker Street at around 3:10 p.m. and then fanned out. The employee noticed some purses missing and said, “Where are the Louis Vuitton bags?” That’s when the quintet took off running. Read more…
The Local was a journalistic collaboration designed to reflect the richness of the East Village, report on its issues and concerns, give voice to its people and create a space for our neighbors to tell stories about themselves. It was operated by the students and faculty of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, in collaboration with The New York Times, which provides supervision to ensure that the blog remains impartial, reporting-based, thorough and rooted in Times standards. Read more »
