In an extremely embarrassing incident for the Brooklyn DA's office, an audio technician taped over a statement made by a cop killer while in custody. The DA's office will now have to rely on a detective's notes taken during that statement and the videotape recorded during a follow-up interview with suspect Robert Ellis. Ellis was arrested after the fatal shooting of police officer Russel Timoshenko, who was shot in the face at point blank range......

A lawsuit filed Monday against the City Campaign Finance Board seeks to overturn a recently enacted funding law that opponents assert will just make the City Council richer - and whiter. The recently-enacted campaign finance restrictions reduces the contributions from companies who do business with the city by a whopping 92%. Translation: In a mayoral race, the individual limit on giving is now $400, versus $4,950; in City Council races, it's $250, down from $2,950.......

"spot on" by ShhPeKo on flickr Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a baby in cardiac arrest on West 96th St. in Manhattan, a shooting on Church and Flatbush Aves. in Brooklyn, and a found grenade on East 196th St. and Bainbridge Ave. in the Bronx. More hand-sifted material has been transported to Fresh Kills, Staten Island. The material does not contain any human remains and is not located on a site that contains landfill.......

The series of residential structures lining Flushing Ave. in Brooklyn are historic treasures, but they are a little the worse for wear and some legislators can't wait to tear them down. Officers' Row, or Admirals' Row, is a feature at the Brooklyn Navy Yard that has admittedly fallen into sad disrepair, but nonetheless has a rich history linking New York harbor to the naval industry that was a cornerstone of building the United States as......

Oh no! An 8-month-old baby bitten by a family dog was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital. The family lives on Ocean Parkway in the Prospect Park South/Kensington neighborhood. According to NY1, the baby had been in his grandmother's care "when the family Doberman bit his head. Sources say the attack may have occurred after the baby touched the dog's paw." WNBC reports police shot the dog with a dart and Animal Control removed it......

Yesterday afternoon, the FDNY responded to a fire that broke out in a Midwood apartment building, only to find two girls, ages 1 and 2, alone. The girls' mother had left them with her boyfriend, who went out. Sigh. A neighbor noticed smoke coming from under the front door. Trina Thomas explained to the Daily News, "I ran upstairs to call the Fire Department. I had no idea there were kids by themselves at the......

An early morning argument Saturday left a 19-year-old dead and a building on Ocean Parkway besieged with heavily armed police searching for the killer. Allen Tahiraj was shot on Ocean Parkway around 3:30am Saturday morning as he congregated with friends. One friend said, "There was a little argument and one of the kids pulled a gun." The argument was overheard as being about "territory" and may have been drug related. Tahiraj was allegedly trying to......

In November, Charlie Rose sat down with rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z. The musician is originally from Brooklyn and late in the interview Rose queries about the expected success of the Nets once they move to Kings County. Jay-Z is very enthusiastic about the potential of the team and the virtues of the borough, as he prefaces every statement about Brooklyn with the words "we" and "ours." It is unintentionally comedic then when Rose immediately......

The health scare of the season continued this week with news of an outbreak of the methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) "superbug" at an Upper East Side hospital's children's ward. The New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center said that nine infants were infected with the drug-resistant strain of bacteria that killed a New York 7th Grader last month. Omar Rivera Jr. was felled by the staph infection on October 14th after being misdiagnosed at Kings County......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a missing patient at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, a car vs. overpass on Kings Highway in Brooklyn, and a truck explosion on 64th Rd. and 108th St. in Queens. A sharp-sighted deckhand on a Staten Island Ferry spotted a pistol sticking out of the pocket of a dim-witted passenger snoozing on a Sunday morning ferry. The passenger, who was arrested, had a long record of criminal weapons possessions.......

Last week, the I.S. 211 in Canarsie told parents that 7th grader Omar Rivera had died from the antibiotic-resistant staph infection MRSA. Now his mother is suing the city and Kings County Hospital for $25 million over the mistreatment of the 12-year-old. On October 11, Aileen Rivera took him to a clinic to examine a pus-filled sores on his back. The Flatlands clinic gave him Motrin and a mild antibiotic, but since it didn't clear......

The weekend got off to a violent start last night with a number of shootings and stabbings around the city. Six young men were shot or stabbed on the streets of New York Friday night and police have made no immediate arrests, primarily because there are no apparent motives for any of the crimes. 1010WINS runs through the casualties: Jose Batista and a friend were both shot in the stomach while on West 34th around......

A 16-year-old boy was shot in the head after looking out of the window of his Bushwick home on Cooper Street. The police believe Tavin Alves Clarke looked outside after hearing gunfire and was shot between 2-3AM. He wasn't found until 5AM, when his 5-year-old brother woke up and found him bleeding and "slumped by the third-floor window." The child ran to his mother and sister for helping crying, "My brother was bleeding!" The Daily......

Meat-adverse gourmands take note: October isn’t just Family Sexuality Education Month, Healthier Babies Month and Dental Hygiene Month, it’s also National Vegetarian Awareness Month! Yesterday, in fact, was World Vegetarian Day, which came hot on the heels of September 28th’s Hug a Vegetarian Day. (Photos!) Feeling aware yet? Brooklyn vegetarians still aching from the sting of Heath Ledger’s departure can try to fill the void at the first annual Brooklyn Vegetarian Restaurant Week, which seems......

On Friday night, three young women were shot while sitting on a stoop in Flatbush on Friday night. Witnesses say that the gunman was riding a bicycle: He got off when opened fire around 10PM, aiming at two men. He missed the men, but ended up hitting the three women. Then he got on his bike again, heading towards Flatbush Avenue. The three friends were sitting outside 91 East 21st Street, near Caton Avenue. Police......

In late November 2005, police officer Dillon Stewart and his partner, Paul Lipka, stopped a 1990 Infiniti for a traffic violation (driving with dealer plates) in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. One of the men inside fired five bullets into the unmarked police car (Stewart and Lipka were uniformed), and Stewart (pictured) and Lipka proceeded to chase the car. But then Stewart realized that he had been shot -- the bullet had missed his bulletproof vest by......

This week's NY Times Weddings & Celebrations announcements include: Forty-five weddings and one same sex civil union, plus the Vows column Twenty-four photographs of couples and one photograph of a bride-only The youngest bride is 24, the oldest bride is 62 The youngest groom is 25, the oldest groom is 65 The artist Fred Wilson unwittingly drew the couple in the Vows column together One bride is the program coordinator for the Kings County DA's......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: An overturned vehicle on the Triborough Bridge, which can't be good for all those getting away for the weekend; an escaped prisoner in The Bronx; and multiple pedestrians were struck Dyckman Street & Broadway. Early this morning in Bed-Stuy, a police officer sitting in a marked vehicle was shot in the arm. The officer was treated and released from Kings County Hospital but the NYPD is still searching for......

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......

Before the Beastie Boys’ concert at McCarren Park Pool last night, Gothamist attended a press conference with the 3 MC’s and verified an interesting bit of trivia: Despite having formed in Brooklyn, rehearsed often at Adam Yauch’s parent’s crib downtown, and associated themselves with the borough constantly over the decades, the band itself had not yet performed in Kings County. Mike D broke it down like so, “When we came up none of the......

A report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that the minority population has changed significantly in the past seven years. While the overall population of the city has increased about 200,000 between 2000 and 2006, the African-American population is actually on the decline. The city's black population dropped more than 40,000 during the period while the Hispanic and Asian population both increased more than 90,000 during the same period. According to The......

A no parking sign? A fire hydrant? Mere street dressing when it comes to drivers with a DOT-issued Department of City Planning placard. Streetsblog observes that a yellow Porsche convertible parked on Seventh Avenue belongs to City Planning Commissioner Dolly Williams. Hello, Dolly indeed. Streetsblog notes that Williams, Brooklyn's sole representative on the planning commission, "has been barred from participating in Kings County's most important recent land use processes." For instance, she can't attend Atlantic......

Another interesting city bus story and this one is without arrests! Did you know that if your baby is born on a bus, the birth certificate may list the location of birth as the route number? Week-old baby Lydia Irvin's birth certificate states she was born on a B15, and the Post describes her mother's labor as something straight out of a sitcom. First, pregnant Madeline Rivera and her mother, also named Lydia Irvin, were......

Today, the Daily News prints a heartbreaking letter from Tatyana and Leonid Timoshenko, the parents of police officer Russel Timoshenko who died after being shot on a July 9 traffic stop in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. The Timoshenkos, who immigrated to the U.S. from Belarus in 1993, thank the Kings County Hospital staff, NYPD, and "all of the people of New York and the entire nation who prayed with us." The News has a PDF......

Twenty-three-year-old police officer Russel Timoshenko died yesterday at King County Hospital, five days after being shot twice in the face during a Monday traffic stop in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. Doctors took him off life support after finding he had no brain activity yesterday afternoon. KCH director of trauma service and surgical critical care, Dr. Robert Kurtz, was visibly upset as he reported Timoshenko's death. From Newsday:Kurtz, who choked up, said the case "affected us emotionally......

Hundreds of police officers headed to Brooklyn's criminal court for the arraignment of Dexter Bostic and Robert Ellis, suspected of shooting two Brooklyn police officers who had pulled over their stolen SUV during an early Monday morning traffic stop. Bostic and Ellis, who had been extradited from Pennsylvania on Thursday, were held without bail. Neither man spoke during the arraignment, which formally charged them each with "two counts of attempted murder, two counts of......

Today, Dexter Bostick and Robert Ellis will be arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on charges related to the Monday shooting of two police officers during a traffic stop. Bostick and Ellis had fled NYC after the shooting, only to be captured days later in Pennsylvania. Yesterday, they were extradited from Pennsylvania, and lines of police officers watched them as they were escorted to and from the 71st Precinct in Brooklyn. Police officers are expected......

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......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a large snake was reported on West 118th St. in Manhattan, an assault in transit on the Brighton Line in Brooklyn, and an armed robbery on Whittier St. and Lafayette Ave. in the Bronx. The Splasher's identity is revealed! Scroll down to the bottom of our post on the anti-street art vandal for his name and picture. Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro wants security cameras installed at a......

Thirteen-year-old Bramdon Ragnot was found in a Brooklyn alley, shot in the head, yesterday afternoon. He was discovered around 5PM by a Marine Park neighbor who told the Daily News, "I didn't know he was shot. I thought he was just beat up. I said, 'I know it hurts, but keep your eyes open.'" Another neighbor told the Post that a teen had asked to use a phone after the shooting, "He banged on my......