A Rhode Island man was arrested after trying to board a Jet Blue flight from Puerto Rico to Boston with "a stun gun, a pepper spray canister, four box cutters, and a switch blade knife." TSA screening noticed the items in Jose Pol's carry-on, and found "two lighters, six batteries, a button device attached to a wire that gives a charge when pressed, a flight simulator program, scissors, three boxes of matches, and New York city information cards" in his other bags. more ›

The Muslim prison chaplain caught bringing razor blades (“the kind found in barbershops”) and scissors into the downtown jail known as The Tombs walked free yesterday when a grand jury couldn’t decide whether to indict him or dismiss all charges. But he still faces charges including felony counts of promoting prison contraband, and has another court date set for April 27. Whatever the decision, the Correction Department says it will seek to fire Zul-Qarnain Abdu-Shahid, who in the 70s took part in a supermarket robbery that resulted in the death of one shopper. more ›

In December 1976, Paul Pitts was with a group of men who shot and killed a customer during a Harlem supermarket robbery. He was convicted of murder and did a 14 year bid upstate, getting paroled in 1993. (A prior sex assault charge against him was dismissed before the murder case.) During his time in prison, Pitts found religion, and subsequently changed his name to Zulqarnain Abdu-Shahid. For the past few years he's been paid $49,471 a year to serve as a Muslim chaplain for the Department of Correction, but yesterday he was arrested once again, this time for trying to bring three metal blades and a pair of scissors into the Manhattan Detention Complex at 125 White Street. more ›

More trouble at the Tombs! Today cops arrested a Muslim chaplain for smuggling box cutters into the jail in lower Manhattan. Imam Zul-Qarnain Shahid has worked as a spiritual adviser for the city Department of Corrections for three years, and now he may face a prison term of his own. Sources say Sahid was caught this morning attempting to bring three box-cutters into the prison, though so far it's not known why he brought them or for whom, reports the Post. It's not the first scandal to hit the Tombs: last year a chaplain at the facility organized a catered prison bar mitzvah for the son of an inmate, hosting a band and a long guest list of non-inmates. more ›

A baseball fan threatened to kill a stranger who was wearing a Los Angeles Dodger's hat in a Brooklyn diner yesterday. According to the Post, 38-year-old suspect Marcos Esteban — who was born 14 years after the Dodger's abandoned Brooklyn — menaced the Los Angeles fan with a boxcutter for wearing the wrong ballcap to the eatery, which is near the corner of Myrtle Avenue and Skillman Street. more ›

Police arrested two 3rd graders and a 5th grader suspected of bringing a box cutter and a knife to their Bronx elementary school on Wednesday. According to the Post, a school safety agent nabbed a 9-year-old with a box cutter inside P.S. 2 on Franklin Avenue in Morrisania at around 9:30 am. When questioned, the student ratted out his accomplices — an 8-year-old and an 11-year-old — who reportedly were plotting an assault against a faculty member. more ›

"We got into a fight about him cheating on me. I cut him with a box cutter, and he punched me in the face," 41-year-old Lisa Gibbs told cops after she was arrested Oct. 30th. "I punched her in the face because I was defending myself when she tried to cut me with the box cutter," her husband Christopher Binns, 34, told police. There's not much more to add—except that Gibbs is also a public school principal at Brooklyn's School for Global Studies. The school might ring a bell if you recall the great laxative prank of 2008 that went so terribly wrong. more ›

"Give Peace a Chance" is apparently no longer the tune surrounding Central Park's Strawberry Fields, after a stroller mishap led to a man getting slashed. Yesterday evening, a man accidentally bumped into a stroller being pushed by a man and a woman near the park at 72nd St. and Central Park West. more ›