If you were an escaped prisoner desperately trying to prove your innocence, which local news source would you approach to plead your case? If your first thought was a certain local rag known for its typically classy front pages, then you might want to rethink that plan...since you very well may find yourself back in custody soonafter. more ›

Two years ago, a prisoner managed to stroll out of the Criminal Court Building in Manhattan because he was wearing a business suit and convinced a guard that he was a lawyer. After a day on the lam, police caught Ronald Tackman—wearing jeans and a t-shirt—in Washington Heights with a fake passport, wigs, phony beards, and four gun-shaped cigarette lighters. Now, a judge has sentenced him to a maximum of life in prison, even though Tackman argued he needed the NY Attorney General to certify the constitutionality of the laws sending him to the pokey, "If I bought a painting from Sotheby’s, it would be certified authentic by three experts. If you buy a Ford, it’s certified. If you buy a diamond ring, it’s certified. The laws of America must be certified. They are much more valuable than a painting. How come I can’t see proof of this?" more ›

Police are looking for a man who they just had in their custody—apparently Thomas Davtian, a robbery suspect, managed to get out of the questioning room at Brooklyn's 61st Precinct, which covers Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, Kings Highway, Homecrest, Madison, Manhattan Beach, and Gerritsen Beach. So now the cops want your help. more ›

This week TIME presented their Top 10 Zoo Escapes list (the Bronx Zoo cobra only came in at #6!), and it turns out this isn't the first time New York has lost an animal. Unsurprising, really. They recall the rhesus monkeys that escaped on Long Island decades upon decades ago, saying: more ›

On Friday afternoon, a 20-inch Egyptian Cobra (whose venom can stop " the nerve signals from being transmitted to the muscles") went missing from an off-exhibit enclosure at the Bronx Zoo, and as of today...it's still missing. The Bronx Zoo wrote on Twitter, "We're confident that our missing cobra has not left the Reptile House." Is it time to make the requisite, "Why'd it have to be snakes?" joke yet? more ›

On the Gothamist Newsmap, there's an item about an accident on St. Nicholas Avenue and 177th Street in Manhattan—and WPIX has more details: Around 4:30 a.m., "Police say the man was trying to break into another car when officers in a cruiser spotted him. They say he hopped into his dark-colored minivan and tried to escape patrol officers. He drove east on 177th Street, which is west-bound. Police did not disclose the speed of the impact of the head-on crash, but it crumpled the front ends of both vehicles." The driver was taken to a hospital, where he was then taken into police custody. more ›

A bull and cow somehow escaped from their farm and ended up roaming Long Island for a few hours. According to Newsday (subscription required), they were "dashing across backyards, jumping over fences, cavorting on train tracks and defying the herding heroics of the locals trying to capture them," as well as "grazing serenely as drivers on Montauk Highway looked on." more ›

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the NYPD is at fault for letting a man accused of multiple robberies escape from a Staten Island courthouse on Wednesday. Suspect Freddie Thompson, 35, assumed the identity of a detainee facing lesser charges for marijuana possession and was released from Richmond County Criminal Court after being sentenced to time served. "It appears the police officer didn't adequately check the identification of the prisoner," said Kelly, according to the Daily News. "There was a mistake here—no question about it." The officer who was responsible has been "placed on modified duty." Thompson is described as 6'3'', 200 lbs, with a tattoo of an executioner on his arm. more ›

A Staten Island robbery suspect walked out of a courtroom a free man after he impersonated a detainee facing lesser charges. Freddie Thompson—who was supposed to be arraigned for five robberies—pretended to be a suspect held on marijuana possession charges and was sentenced to time served. Authorities apparently didn't realize the gaffe until 90 minutes later, when the other prisoner asked officials why his name hadn't been called. more ›

A 22-year-old Staten Island man who escaped from police custody—on camera!—was sentenced to a decade behind bars, in part due to his escape attempt. According to the Advance, Naquan Thompson was hit with the 10-year sentence after pleading guilty to the failed Jan. 6 escape, and admitting he robbed a bodega last year and threw a pit bull puppy at a police officer (the dog bit the cop on the forehead). Thompson managed to slip out of his handcuffsduring a routine perp walk, but cops chased him and arrested him after he broke his ankle leaping from the St. George Ferry Terminal to Staten Island Railway property. more ›

A man suspected of beating his girlfriend and assaulting a police officer escaped from a Bronx court yesterday when he pretended to be another prisoner facing lesser charges. Michael Bautista, 22, was mistakenly released after assuming the identity of man accused of driving with a suspended license and was allowed to walk out of the 44th Precinct on East 161st Street after his arraignment at around 10 am. more ›

The police officer in charge when suspect Naquan Thompson slipped out of his handcuffs and briefly escaped from custody has been suspended from the force, according to NY1. Though cops arrested the escapee about 10 minutes after he broke free outside Staten Island 120th Precinct on Wednesday, a 17-year NYPD veteran — whose name has not been released — will be off the job for 30 days. The 22-year-old armed robbery suspect got away as he was being walked to a police van. He led officers on a chase to the St. George Ferry Terminal, where he was arrested after breaking his ankle in a jump from a station ramp to Staten Island Railway property. more ›

A prisoner broke free from a chain linking him to other detainees outside the 120th Precinct in Staten Island this morning and lead police on a wild chase before breaking his ankle and getting caught, the Advance reports. Cops chased the suspect — identified as 22-year-old Naquan Thompson — after he escaped as he was being loaded into a van that would have brought him to his criminal court for an arraignment on robbery charges. more ›

A petty larceny suspect escaped from a TriBeCa police station last night only to be dragged back to the First Precinct in tears. Orlando Reyes, 21, was being transferred to Central Booking when he reportedly broke free from the Ericsson Place stationhouse and hid in an alley nearby according to the Daily News. more ›

A motorcyclist caught driving with a suspended license at the Bronx-side entrance to the Throgs Neck Bridge decided to jump rather than face arrest yesterday. Rocky Sanchez, 43, has had his license suspended 17 times, and when MTA Bridges and Tunnels Officer Charles Luce pulled him over by the toll plaza, Sanchez wasn't about to go down without a fight. First he sped away from Luce, then abandoned his motorcycle, ran across six lanes of traffic, climbed over the wall and jumped about 30 feet! more ›

A dog's gotta do what a dog's gotta do—and if that means breaking out of a veterinary clinic after undergoing surgery, so be it! Pharaoh, a 9-year-old German Shepherd, managed to get out of his cage at a Hauppauge, Long Island clinic, and then, Newsday reports, "opened the back door"—which had a deadbolt—"unlatched a gate and fled." Here's video of Pharaoh, wearing his surgical cone, working the door: more ›

When we reported Tuesday that a fourth sick, emaciated goat had been found wandering in the area of Pelham Bay Park near the Hutchinson River Parkway in the Bronx, one commenter provided a possible explanation for the mystery: "These goats aren't 'escaping' from anywhere. they're the victims of Santeria sacrifice that regularly takes place in Pelham Bay Park." Indeed, locals have long reported seeing candles, fruits and animal bones and skulls in the area. more ›

When career criminal and escape artist Ronald Tackman was able to walk out of a Manhattan courthouse Wednesday simply because he was wearing a nice suit, there must have been some part of him that wondered, "That's it?" For when Tackman was eventually picked up Washington Heights, police discovered on him an arsenal that rivaled a Carrot Top starter kit: a fake passport, wigs, phony beards, and four gun-shaped cigarette lighters. Does he do accents as well? more ›

Ronald Tackman, the man who escaped from custody at Criminal Court thanks to his nice suit, was captured last night at 175th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights. A tipster told cops that he was taking a city bus and they were there to arrest him. more ›

Ronald Tackman, the prisoner who escaped from a Criminal Court holding cell yesterday and managed to blend in with the court crowds, thanks to his business suit, is still at large. He did manage to head to his mother's Upper East Side home; she told NY1, "He came home and he was all dressed up and I figured that he was discharged from prison. So I didn't say anything and he asked me to change his clothes and that was it." His new attire: Jeans and a black jacket. more ›

On the police scanners (now on Gothamist Newsmap), there have been multiple reports of an "escaped prisoner" from 100 Centre Street in lower Manhattan, which is the Criminal Court Building. Now it turns out that the prisoner escaped because he was dressed so well that he looked like a lawyer! more ›

The alleged serial rapist who terrorized Upper Manhattan for over a month tried to make a break for it during his arraignment Monday night. He didn't get very far. According to the Post, an unidentified young woman—believed to be a girlfriend—was in the Manhattan Criminal Court room sobbing and blowing kisses at suspect Vincent Heyward, whose DNA matched all four victims. When Heyward saw her, he bolted for the back door of the courtroom, pursued by more than a dozen court officers. more ›

A woman leaving a Chelsea nightclub escaped a kidnapping that could have gotten a lot worse by jumping out of the moving car she had been pulled into as it sped away down Ninth Avenue. The 21-year-old who had been partying at Club Velour on 10th Avenue is not revealing her identity, but allowed her picture to be published in the Post. more ›

It might be time to worry about a raccoon takeover of the city. Earlier today one of them outsmarted the humans, escaping their clutches after being caught on the roof of City Hall. 1010Wins reports back that "he quickly figured out his getaway—reaching up and bending back the top of the cage. He then got to the ground by climbing down some construction scaffolding on the back side of City Hall. He eluded animal control for more than half an hour as he crept along the bottom of the wall." more ›

The Afghan reporter who was kidnapped by the Talban, alongside NY Times reporter David Rohde, in Afghanistan last November described how he and Rohde escaped the compound where they were being held. According to the NY Times, it was a "desperate attempt by two severely demoralized reporters who believed that the Taliban were not seriously negotiating and would hold them indefinitely." Tahir Ludin says he and Rohde planned their escape on a day when the electricity was on, because the air-conditioning would mask sounds of their getaway. After their guards fell asleep, the men "made their way to the second floor" and cleared a five-foot wall, but then Ludin "was greeted by an unnerving view: a 20-foot drop." Ludin climbed down a rope that Rohde found (and hidden away), but injured his foot in the fall; Rohde managed without injury. When they arrived at a Pakistani militia camp, guards initially suspected they might be suicide bombers. However, once their identities as journalists were confirmed, "they were treated well." Times executive editor Bill Keller explained that Rohde's kidnapping was not reported on because "All along, we were told by people that probably the wisest course for David's safety was to keep it quiet." more ›

Robert McDonald, a 60-year-old Scottish man, faces a year in prison after acting out every delayed passenger's fantasy aboard a grounded Delta flight Sunday night. The plane had been stalled on the taxiway for two and a half hours due to inclement weather (after a layover between Edinburgh and Vegas), and it seems all that waiting put the zap on old McDonald's head. At some point around 7:45 p.m., he snapped and allegedly tried to make a break for it by popping open the emergency exit! more ›

Columbia-NY Presbyterian Hospital, at Broadway & 168th Street, was under lockdown yesterday when a suspect, arrested on stolen property and drug charges and being monitored at the hospital, . The Port Authority police had brought Esteban Guitterez to the hospital on Saturday night and the Columbia Spectator reports that he "was in a bathroom in the Emergency Room area at 11:50 a.m. Sunday, when he reportedly decided to climb into the ceiling of the facility. He subsequently trapped himself inside a wall of the structure." After searching for over an hour, Guitterez, according to the PA police, "was eventually determined to be on the other side of a sheetrock wall, so they knocked down the wall and there he was.” The PA police were joined by the NYPD in the manhunt—one man whose pregnant wife as evacuated said, "[My wife] was very scared, obviously." The Daily News adds that the PA cops who were guarding him "are not expected to be disciplined" more ›

Finally, we all have closure for a 2004 incident where a tiger from the Cole Bros. Circus escaped, ran along the Jackie Robinson Highway, and then passed out in some bushes. See, drivers who caught glimpse of Apollo, a 450-pound tiger, were naturally startled and ended up in a five-car pile-up (started when one driver didn't want to hit the huge creature). And, naturally, those drivers sued. 1010WINS reports that the tiger's trainer will pay a near $1 million settlement to two drivers "both claimed to have suffered devastating back injuries in the chain-reaction car crash." Apollo's escape at the time gave State Senator Carl Kruger more reason to ban the circus, especially considering Cole Bros. had also included flying cats. more ›

Remy Ma, better known for her court hearings than for her Grammy nomination, is having trouble becoming "an honest woman," as the saying goes. The rapper was supposed to be married on Rikers Island yesterday to her fiancée Papoose -- but when her groom brought a questionable gift for his bride, the wedding was called off. more ›