After serving tours in the Middle East, it was a Brooklyn backyard barbecue that proved deadly for Sergeant Kidson George. The 26-year-old man was gunned down on the porch of a Crown Heights home where he was celebrating the 4th of July with his girlfriend and others. George was shot twice in the chest by his girlfriend's former boyfriend, sending children screaming and dashing for cover. An unidentified 27-year-old woman was hit by a stray......

The police have increased their presence in Crown Heights after two incidents that have upset the black and Jewish communities and caused unrest between them. And many are recalling the summer of 1991, when the Crown Heights riots shook the city. Last month, a 20-year-old black man, Andrew Charles, the son of a police officer, was attacked by a group of white men believed to be part of the Hasidic anti-crime patrol, Crown Heights Shmira.......

Southpaw owner Matt Roff is awfully busy opening new bars and venues lately (hopefully not nearby any nit-picky neighbors). As he works on the Galapagos space transformation, he somehow fit in opening up a beer garden last Friday in Crown Heights. Franklin Park is a 2,000-sq-ft beer garden (with 1,200-sq-ft of outdoor space) housed in a former mechanic's garage (à la Fette Sau) located at 618 St. John's Place in Brooklyn. Their website serves......

A real estate developer with close religious and social ties to the Lubavitcher Hasidim community managed to swindle 40 families out of their homes in what the Daily News describes as one of the biggest scams of the recent housing crisis. Eliyahu Ezagui sold pre-construction homes to 40 different families in Crown Heights, and years after the buildings were in place and the families moved in, he took out mortgages on the condos and left......

According to The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the 11233 zip code that encompasses Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights had the highest foreclosure rates for subprime mortgages in the entire nation in October. More than one in four people, or 25.2%, with subprime loans in the zip code lost their homes to foreclosure. That's almost four times the national average of 6.9%. It's a stark example of the toll that the lending meltdown is taking......

The NY Post has a terrifying story of a Brooklyn man acting out his on-screen horror fantasies in Crown Heights. Back in November, Joseph Swaby, 22, attacked his roommate Jason Dixon (who he met in jail)...with "razor-fingered gloved hand à la Freddy Kruger"! The nightmare on Pacific Street began when Swaby thought Dixon had stolen for him. As one does when they think their roommate has lifted their money, he made him strip and then......

Take a good, long look New York: You could be staring into the squinty eyes of your future mayor. (Yes, the white dude on the right.) Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who describes himself as “somewhat comical” [emphasis added] is on the verge of announcing his candidacy for mayor. Fuhgeddaboutit? The Crown Heights native, who earned a B.A. at Brooklyn College after nine years of night school, has loudly occupied the largely ceremonial position......

A FDNY lieutenant died as he and other firefighters were battling a fire in Crown Heights. Lieutenant John H. Martinson went into cardiac arrest during the 2-alarm fire on the 14th floor of the Ebbets Field Apartments. Over 100 firefighters responded to the fire, which was under control around 8:30PM - 75 minutes after the the first call. It's unclear what caused the fire (it's under investigation but does not appear to be suspicious) but......

The man who allegedly shot and killed Carol Simon-Hayes last week, as she was walking towards her nine-year-old son and talking to a friend on the phone, has been arrested. Darius Dubarry was arrested at a motel in Augusta, Georgia, where the 27-year-old fled town after Simon-Hayes's death. Simon-Hayes was killed in Crown Heights when an argument between Dubarry and another man devolved to gunplay, and Simon was struck by a stray bullet. “I got......

The NYPD detectives working the homicide investigation of Carol Simon have identified a suspect in her killing, although they are not publicizing his identity. Simon was shot as she was returning to her car where her son was waiting for her at a gas station. The killing occurred Saturday evening in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, as an argument between two men turned violent and one of the men pulled a gun. Neighbors and......

The family of Carol Simon is grieving after she was killed while walking on Eastern Parkway near Bedford around 5:30PM on Saturday. Simon, a 35-year-old nurse's assistant, had been on her way to take her son to swimming lessons when an argument between two men became violent and one pulled out a gun. Simon and her son Kieron, 9, had driven to an Exxon to buy some things. Simon realized she forgot her purse, so......

In late August, a family was terrorized when three men forced their way into the Crown Heights apartment. Now, police have charged one of the suspects with multiple counts of rape and assault. The violent incident occurred on August 30, when they barged into a home on Sterling Place. They tied up six men and boys with duct tape and then raped and sexually assaulted a woman, her teenage daughter, and a family friend in......

Police say a man confessed to the brutal killing of his girlfriend's 61-year-old mother on Tuesday. And Newsday says that among Joseph Cazeau's "stunning" admissions was that he was having an affair with his victim. Cazeau and 42-year-old Mary Luzincourt had been together for 12 years, had three children, and were living on St. John's Place in Crown Heights. The couple had been having so many problems that Tuesday afternoon Luzincourt says she was seeking......

A Crown Heights family endured a lifetime of horrors when a group of men raped the mother, daughter, and family friend during a home invasion robbery. The Daily News reports that around 1AM yesterday morning, three men "pushed their way into the second-floor Sterling Place apartment." The Post says the 41-year-old father and two sons, ages 14 and 22, were pistol-whipped and tied up before they preyed upon the women, a 43-year-old woman, her 17-year-old......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting at West 138th St. and Broadway in Manhattan, a triple shooting on Hunter Ave. in the Bronx, and a bomb threat at the intersection of Prospect and 5th Aves. in Brooklyn. Residents of Starrett City received a letter from the housing complex's owners that they intend to opt out of the state's subsidized housing program. One third of the 6,000 apartments at Starrett City are subsidized and......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: Is there a bank robber hitting up multiple banks on the Upper West Side? There were robberies at 2438 Broadway and 59 West 86th St; there were also two separate police vehicle MVAs in The Bronx and Brooklyn; and a fatality under a train in Jackson Heights (it says A, but we'll assume it's the E). If any Wall Street types you know were depressed yesterday after the Dow......

Last Thursday, a murder suspect jumped out of a third floor interrogation room at a Queens precinct when detectives, who had uncuffed him, left the room. On Friday, another suspect in an interrogation room got out of his cuffs and jumped out a Crown Heights precinct window. Now, early this morning, a burglary suspect taken to Long Island Hospital has escaped. WNBC reports that the police had removed the 46-year-old's handcuffs at the Brooklyn hospital......

A 12-year-old girl, who was with her 5-year-old brother, was struck by a bullet on St. Marks Avenue in Crown Heights. The Post reports that the bullet "exited her body" on the left side. The girl was not badly hurt and even managed to react calmly by heading to a bodega for safety. A woman who was shopping at the store told the Daily News that the girl tugged at her shirt, "She came to......

The NYPD may want to consider relocating its interrogation rooms to higher floors in its precinct houses, after the second man in 24 hours escaped from police custody by jumping out of an open window in his interrogation room Friday. Seventeen-year-old Ezekiel Edwards was the second suspect in a day to elude cops post-arrest, by waiting to be left alone in an interrogation room and then fleeing out a window of the 77th Precinct in......

On Sunday, a Brooklyn woman who took in homeless men was found dead in her apartment. The Post reported that neighbors, who had not seen Young since Thursday, noticed a foul smell and eventually Geraldine Young's son found her "bloated and naked" body in a locked room. The ME's office's autopsy was inconclusive, and the police have yet to classify the death as a murder. Young lived in a brownstone at 1274 Bergen Street and......

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg announced a project to commemorate abolitionist activity that occurred in Brooklyn in the 1800s. He named a panel made up of community leaders, academics, and historians to aid the city and Downtown Brooklyn Partnership in asking for and reviewing commemoration proposals. The panels of the Commemoration Panel are: the Reverend Lawrence Aker, Senior Pastor, Cornerstone Baptist Church; Richard Greene, Executive Director, Crown Heights Youth Collective; Colvin L. Grannum, President, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration......

MUSIC: Former Fugee Lauryn Hill will be giving a rare performance in Crown Heights tonight. The Grammy winner hasn't put out a new release in nearly a decade! So there's a good chance she'll be playing a lot off of 1998's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Sean Kingston also performs. 7:30pm // Wingate Field [Crown Heights, Brooklyn] // Free Union Hall invites Nina Persson of The Cardigans to the stage tonight under the name A......

Today, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz will be kicking off another year of "Lighten Up Brooklyn" with a walk around Brooklyn Heights. "Lighten Up Brooklyn" was started a few years ago to encourage Brooklynites to lose weight and make their lifestyles healthier. And since he had stents put into his arteries last year, Lighten Up Brooklyn is a big deal to Markowitz. From his office's press release:Markowitz, who underwent a stent procedure last summer,......

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......

Early this morning, two police officers pulled over a BMW X5 SUV with stolen plates at the Lefferts and Rogers Avenue in Crown Heights. The driver or a passenger shot at the cops, and WNBC reports that 23-year-old police officer Russel Timoshenko (was hit twice in the face while 26-year-old police officer Herman Yan was shot in his bullet-proof vest and arm. Yan fired back and radioed for help. Timoshenko and Yan were taken......

Last night Beverly Sills lost her battle with lung cancer, she died at her home in Manhattan at the age of 78. While she was a lifelong non-smoker and only found out about the cancer a few weeks ago, this wasn't her first experience with it - she underwent a successful surgery for cancer in 1974. Sills, born Belle Miriam Silverman (and called "Bubbles" in her youth), was a Brooklyn-born soprano, and one of the......

Early yesterday morning, a 26-year-old Brooklynite was killed when crossing Park Avenue South. Matthew Hopkins had been walking west on East 22nd Street when a car traveling south struck him at around 4:09AM; witnesses say the car didn't even slow down. Hopkins was pronounced dead at Bellevue at 4:30AM. Police are looking for a 1991 maroon Honda with damage to the front; call Crime Stoppers (800-577-TIPS) with any information. And the Post reports that Hopkins......

An AMNew York article delves into the neighborhood and tactical thoughts behind NYPD sky watch towers. The towers have four digital cameras, a spotlight, and a place for a cop to observe what's happening from two stories above the sidewalk. Reaction to the sky watches has been mixed. Crown Heights Community Board 10 chairman Emil Clark said, "People that had been living in the neighborhood forever were concerned that maybe this was for the people......

Some 30 years after Landmarks Preservation Commission officials first explored landmarking Crown Heights, the Commission has granted landmark status to the architecturally-rich neighborhood. The Commission voted unanimously today to protect 472 buildings in Crown Heights North. The new district will run from Pacific Street to Dean St., Prospect Place and St. Mark’s Ave and from Bedford to Kingston avenues. The buildings in the district were built from the 1860s to the 1930s and the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a water main break on Rosedale Ave. in the Bronx, a shooting on 80th St. and 41st Ave. in Queens, and shots fired on Coney Island Ave. in Brooklyn. Several firefighters jumped into the Hudson yesterday afternoon to rescue a husband who was trying to save his wife, who had somehow fallen into the river. A man and a woman embarked from Hoboken this afternoon on the 70-foot boat......