City lifeguards have been getting nothing but bad press these days, but yesterday afternoon at a pool in Queens they came to the rescue of a young girl who was being sexually assaulted. Lifeguards at Fisher Pool in East Elmhurst were quick to respond when 20-year-old Julio Ajpacaja jumped in what locals call "a kids pool" around 4:30 and began groping a 13-year-old girl, asking her if she "wanted to play." Ajpacaja was pulled out and the cops were called in, eventually charging him with forcible touching and endangering the welfare of a child. Paramedics examined the girl at the scene and witnesses say she was visibly shaken, but not seriously injured. One witness told WCBS 2, "That's sick, that's nasty, a grown man … what are you doing messing around with little kids?" more ›

Despite the ongoing attack on lifeguards, the parks commissioner is standing by his boys in red. After a city pool's lifeguard was arrested for dunking a teenager who accused the lifeguard of trying to drown him, Commissioner Adrian Benepe is saying that he does not think there is any systematic problem with his lifeguards, telling the Post, "Any time you have a large group of workers, you are going to have some problems." Benepe stressed that there's two sides to the dunking story and said, "If someone is resisting, it may appear something that it's not." The teenagers at Highbridge Pool in Washington Heights though must smell blood in the water because they're coming to the Post and claiming that the dunking was not an isolated incident. One 15-year-old told the paper of a similar altercation that occurred in the 10 Feet section of the water two weeks ago, saying, "It was three lifeguards. They took turns dunking the kid without letting him come up for air." more ›

With beach lifeguards doing their part over the past couple weeks to demonstrate just how terrified we should feel swimming beneath their easily-distracted watch, now lifeguards at city pools are making sure we know that they can be negligent too. Yesterday, Luis Peralta, 25, a lifeguard at the Highbridge Pool in Washington Heights, was arrested for dunking a teenager after he joking he would drown anyone who had jumped in while the pool was being cleaned. A fellow teenager told the News, "The lifeguard came in and started drowning the kid. He was basically on top of his head, pushing down with his hands — and he was counting [out loud] up to 5 or 6." Peralta was charged with a misdemeanor for reckless endangerment. The mother of the boy dunked told the Post, "What [the lifeguard] did was very dangerous...I gave him permission to go because I felt safe with him going there, but now I don't feel safe." Just last week, two teens were arrested at the same pool for scuffling with cops when they refused to leave the pool in a similar situation. more ›