Results tagged “blind”

Even criminal street performers in the East Village ain't what they used to be. This weekend 21-year-old Dominic Lapsley used a metal walking stick to pretend that he was blind and bump into a group of strangers at the corner of St. Marks Place and 2nd Avenue around 12:30 a.m. Sunday morning. The five twenty-something victims were then confronted by 40-year-old Benjamin Pleasant, who yelled at them, "Don't run into a blind man! Give me your wallets," as he began going through a victim's pockets. At that point, two more accomplices came out of the woodwork and began beating on the rest of the group. Being on St. Marks on a Saturday night, the scene wasn't exactly off the beaten path and cops were able to quickly sweep the gang up. Just last week a group of transvestite teenagers in the West Village were arrested for robbing locals and spending the loot on wigs.

Health care concerns have been getting some flak for blitzing the airwaves with TV ads protesting Governor Paterson's proposed health care cuts. Most notably, the ads feature a blind man, Juan Petri, asking Paterson, "Why are you doing this to me?" which some felt was a low blow to the blind governor. Yesterday, the Post put Pietri on its front page (headline: DIM WITS) and, today, has an interview with the Bronx resident. Pietri, who voted for the Spitzer-Paterson ticket, said, "I didn't do anything wrong. I did the ads because I'm blind and they're cutting my services...I got nothing against him - just the cuts he's going to make." The Post followed up by speaking to some blind New Yorkers to ask them what they thought of the ads—one said, "Blind people shouldn't talk smack about our blind governor."

Though some people may have laughed at Saturday Night Live's depiction of Governor David Paterson—which did include Fred Armisen as Paterson stumbling around due to his blindness and saying "I'm a blind man who loves cocaine who was suddenly appointed governor of New York. My life is an actual plot from a Richard Pryor movie."—Paterson himself was not one of them.

       

Last summer Shepard Fairey was in town installing his exhibit at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in DUMBO; new pieces also went up around the streets of Brooklyn during that time.

A fight outside a Yonkers bar that cost a man his vision in one eye, may cost a number of NYPD members professionally. One of the participants in the brawl on the border of the Westchester city and the Bronx, Thomas Wimmer, has already resigned from the force. Three other officers are suspended without pay after their arraignment Friday on misdemeanor charges related to a beating on McLean Ave. that cracked a man's skull.