Results tagged “drug”

Back in 2007, cops raided the Bronx home of Alcy Rosario, 27, as he and two accomplices loaded 50 kilos of cocaine—with a street value of $20 million—into duffel bags. Police collared his two partners, but Rosario escaped by running away and jumping into the Bronx River. City Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan tells the Post "they never found the body, but they were always checking to see if he might be around," and cops were regularly seen staking out his building. Well, it turns out Rosario actually survived his suicidal plunge in the river, and even went on to lead a life of carefree recreation. On Saturday night, he finally surfaced, after police were alerted to a group of men riding all-terrain vehicles through Van Cortlandt Park. It's unclear why Rosario didn't harness his mutant Bronx River powers to fight off the cops—he's refusing to speak to investigators. He faces charges that could land him eight to 20 years behind bars; his accomplices pleaded guilty after the 2007 arrest and are currently serving seven-year sentences in state prison.

A Mister Softee ice cream truck driver on Long Island was arrested Saturday after undercover narcotics officers saw him park his truck outside a drug dealer's house they had under surveillance. Police say Kenneth Leiton, 22, rolled up to the home around 4 p.m. and entered the house to conduct a drug deal. He then returned to the truck, turned the music back on, and continued along his route. According to the Post, the cops soon "stopped him cold" and found several small bags of coke and a bag of pot hidden in the sprinkles. He's charged with numerous counts of possession of a controlled substance and with endangering the welfare of a child. Also arrested was Randall Surmanek, 23, who was riding in the truck with Leiton, and two individuals at the drug house. Police tell Newsday Leiton was not the truck owner, but it's still another black eye for Mister Softee—earlier this summer a Softee franchisee was accused of threatening to beat a Kool Man driver for invading "his" turf in Queens. And don't even get us started on the jingle wars.

A delivery man for Brooklyn restaurant Sushi Tatsu on Franklin Avenue (in Crown Heights? Prospect Heights? Discuss.) was in the wrong place at the wrong time last night—right outside his restaurant. Police say Lin Jun, 21, was in front of Sushi Tatsu around 7:30 p.m. when he got caught in the crossfire between warring drug dealers. Jun took at least one bullet in the stomach, staggered into the restaurant and collapsed in a pool of blood. Sushi Tatsu manager Helen Wong tells the Daily News, "It took the ambulance 15 minutes to get here, I can't believe it." Jun's currently in critical condition at Kings County Hospital. An unidentified second man, whom police say was the intended target, was shot in the shoulder and is listed in stable condition at the same hospital. And the perpetrators are still at large.

Researchers at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center say they've prompted rodents to forget painful memories by injecting them with a drug called ZIP, which interferes with a neural substance integral memory functions. So it's only a matter of time before you'll be able to pop a pill and forget all about that photo of the Chinese guy's tumors or Lindsay Lohan's awkward appearance with Lily Allen! The Times has a feature on the Brooklyn lab today, as part of a series on brain research. According to Dr. Todd Sacktor, mice who had previously learned to avoid an electrified area of their cage forgot all about the zap zone after a dose of ZIP, and rats forgot about their disgust for a taste that had made them sick. Sacktor believes the drug could one day be used effectively with humans, and a variant of it could also enhance memory. But Dr. Steven E. Hyman, a neurobiologist at Harvard, is urging caution: "We know that people already use smart drugs and performance enhancers of all kinds, so a substance that actually improved memory could lead to an arms race... This possibility of memory editing has enormous possibilities and raises huge ethical issues."

Former TV producer Julie Horner Lankamp was found dead in her Gold Street apartment Tuesday with "her crying young daughter clutching her legs," as the Daily News sensationally puts it. Relatives say they hadn't spoken with Lankamp since Sunday and police don't know how long the two-year-old had been stranded with her mother's body, which had begun to decompose. Lankamp had a broken jaw, bruises, and dried blood pooled near her nose and mouth, but the city medical examiner doesn't believe Lankamp's injuries were caused by a beating. An empty glassine envelope with cocaine residue was found near her corpse, and investigators say her injuries may have been caused by a fall after a drug overdose. Results of a toxicology report are pending, but in the meantime police are looking to interview her ex-husband, who was arrested at the end of last year "for attacking her with a chair while using their child as a human shield," a source tells the News.

Recovering drug addicts can look forward to climbing even further up the walls starting tomorrow, when all drug treatment centers in New York State implement a smoking ban. Bryan Lapsker, a 21-year-old PCP addict, tells amNY he’s been dreading the change: "Nicotine helps (addicts) get through the day. Now you take the nicotine away from us, it's almost impossible to get through the day. Addiction is addiction, I understand that, but nicotine is a legal substance." The state will now spend $8 million training health care workers how to treat nicotine dependence, and if the regulation’s a hit, maybe they’ll finally take away addicts’ caffeine, chocolate and soda pop, too.