Hundreds of police officers headed to Brooklyn's criminal court for the arraignment of Dexter Bostic and Robert Ellis, suspected of shooting two Brooklyn police officers who had pulled over their stolen SUV during an early Monday morning traffic stop. Bostic and Ellis, who had been extradited from Pennsylvania on Thursday, were held without bail. Neither man spoke during the arraignment, which formally charged them each with "two counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault on a police officer, hindering prosecution, three counts of criminal possession of a weapon and tampering with physical evidence." Bostic was charged with violating his parole as well. more ›

Police arrested one man but are still looking for two others involved with Monday's violent traffic stop in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. When police officers Russel Timoshenko and Herman Yan approached over a BMW SUV with stolen license plates, shots rang out from the car, injuring both officers. Twenty-nine-year-old Lee Woods was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault on a police officer and criminal possession of a weapon. The two other men being sought have criminal histories; from the NY Times:

Dexter Bostic, 34, one of those being sought, first went to state prison in 1990 for assault, robbery and sodomy, officials said. He got out in nine years, but went back for three more in 2001. On parole until 2009, he was working at a Long Island car dealership last week when his parole officer last visited him, officials said. more ›

The police department has launched a citywide dragnet to find suspects who fired at two police officers during a Brooklyn traffic stop early yesterday morning. 23-year-old police officer Russel Timoshenko was shot twice in the head while 26-year-old police officer Herman Yan was shot in the arm and chest. A surveillance video showed that the cops were shot before they had reached the driver and passengers in the car. The Daily News' Michael Daly describes:

Footage from the surveillance camera mounted outside the Little Red Riding Hood preschool shows the green BMW SUV pulling over. more ›

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver joined Sen. Schumer and said that the legislation was necessary to prevent the city from becoming too expensive for the firefighters, police, teachers, and nurses who work in New York, skillfully ingratiating himself with four unions in a single sentence. more ›

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The country's largest federally subsidized housing development was sold today for $1.3 billion. Berkshire LLC bought Starrett City, and Starrett City Associates say the money would be deposited today. more ›

Yesterday was the NY Road Runners Club's 30th Annual Empire State Building Run-up. And, yes, the runners were wearing shorts and T-shirts when they emerged on the skyscraper's roof. Thomas Dold (above, left) of Germany won the men's race in 10 minutes and 25 seconds while Suvy Walsham (above, right) of Singapore (and Australia, apparently) won the women's in 13 minutes 12 seconds. (American Cindy Moll-Harris finished second, at 13:24.) more ›

The Reverend Al Sharpton announced the "shopping for justice" protest march he's been talking about since the shooting of Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman, and Trent Benefield by the police.

"Many will be shopping for trinkets and toys. We will be shopping for justice and making a moral appeal to this city and this nation. The fact that we are going on probably the most visible street in the world tomorrow, you don't have to talk to be heard. You just got to show up."

Yesterday, Governor Pataki took a few former governors on a tour of the World Trade Center, because if there's any place that needs more politicians, it's Ground Zero. The ex-governors included Massachusetts' Bill Weld, Tennesse's Don Sundquist, South Carolina's David Beasley and Iowa's Terry Brandstand. Well, that doesn't smell like a "before I leave office, let's invite potential allies in a presidential run" stunt at all! Pataki's spokesman said that the group would be talking about "the future of the Republican party." And while Pataki wouldn't discuss whether he's going to throw his hat in the ring for the 2008 race, the AP reports that he did say that it would be "very positive" if former Mayor Rudy Giuliani or Senator Hillary Clinton ran. more ›

Yesterday, hundreds of people gathered for two different marches in Queens to protest the police shooting of Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield and police conduct in the community overall. A chapter of the NAACP organized a march of hundreds of people from Jamaica Avenue and 168th Street to where the shooting took place, at Liverpool and 94th Avenue. The other march was organized by the New Black Panther Party, which started at the shooting scene and ended at Jamaica and 168th, and offered much angrier words. more ›

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Yesterday afternoon, Sean Bell was laid to rest in Nassau Knolls Cemetery in Port Washington, Long Island. Bell was killed last weekend in a barrage of police bullets outside a Queens club where he had been celebrating his bachelor party. About 200 mourners were present for the burial; Bell's fiancee and two daughters were present, and his older brother sobbed, "My baby brother!" more ›

Ever since the Saturday police shooting outside a Queens club that killed one man and injured two others, there has been talk of a fourth man in the group. Police have claimed that the undercover officers shot at them because they feared the men were armed, but no weapons were found on the men or in their car. The officers on the scene have insisted a fourth man in a beige jacket was near the car, and the Daily News reported that witnesses picked him out from two lineups. The police hope to speak to him, as they have been looking in the drains near the Kalua Lounge for a dumped gun. But a resident nearby told NY1, "If they find a gun, then none of the kids fingerprints is going to be on it. So that's just a waste of taxpayers' time." more ›

Today, the Reverend Al Sharpton and and the Reverend Jesse Jackson spoke to the press, alongside family members and the fiancee of Sean Bell, who was killed during a Saturday morning police shooting. At a memorial near the club where the shooting occurred, Sharpton said, "We come this morning with the family in their hour of grief. We're all family now. Not a black family, not a white family, not a Latino family, a human family." more ›

"The maintenance is terrible,'' said Harris, a coordinator for an advocacy group called the Disabled Riders Coalition. "If you're stuck on a platform with no way to get out, what if there's a fire?''Later, Harris had to transfer to three different trains in order to reach a station that was accessible. Only 55 of the 469 subway stations are wheelchair-accessible. The MTA says it has a "rapid response team" to fix elevators within the first 24 hours of being notified, but the Manahttan Borough President's office issued a report saying that the average elevator are out of service for 13 days. Which we don't think is rapid, even by MTA standards. more ›

On what would have been his wedding day, Sean Bell's friends and family, as well as other activists, politicians, and members of the community, held a vigil/protest/rally for Bell, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield. Bell was killed during a confrontation with the police after his bachelor party at the Queens strip club Kalua Lounge on Saturday morning. Guzman and Benefield were injured and remain in the hospital. The police fired 50 shots in less than a half minute on the friends' car; the three men were unarmed. An undercurrent of the shooting is race: The three men were black and Hispanic, while there were two white, two black and one Hispanic police officers. more ›

There are more questions than answers today as the police investigate an encounter three men had with the police in Queens early Saturday morning. The police ended up shooting at the men's car, killing a man on the day of his wedding and wounding his two friends. The men were not armed. more ›

With the surprise discovery of human remains in a manhole at Ground Zero on Thursday, the city said they would start a new search for remains of September 11 victims. The contractor who realized that the debris found on Thursday was human remains spoke to the Post:

"By the grace of God, I found the bones. I looked at what looked like bones, but it was muddy stuff. It might have been lumber. It turned out to be an arm bone and a leg bone."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/story/443517p-373548c.html more ›

Gothamist is getting reports from all over that the anti-war protest currently going on down Broadway is a shockingly large one. Though it is only supposed to go from Union Square down Broadway to Worth Street, we're hearing reports of protesters backing up all the way to Madison Square! more ›