A plainclothed Brooklyn cop was badly injured when he was pinned between cars during a routine traffic stop yesterday. According to the Post, the unidentified detective had pulled over a black vehicle in Flatbush with four men inside; he was standing behind the car when a white van rammed into him, crushing his legs and sending blood everywhere. “When they pulled him out of the car, his legs were hanging, dangling, it was terrible, there was blood everywhere,” said one witness. more ›

According to the Daily News, a white NYPD sergeant in Brooklyn is being investigated for allegedly using a racial slur against a black officer. Sgt. Sean McLaine, of the ever-troubled 79th Precinct in Bedford-Stuyvesant, has been accused of calling Officer Roberto Stokes "boy" several times. Stokes's lawyer, Norman Siegel, said the incident was indicative of a culture of racism within the NYPD: "In the year 2011, somebody calling an African-American officer a boy is simply unacceptable. This incident is part of a larger problem of race with that precinct." more ›

A Long Island police officer was arrested today on charges that he forced a woman to grope him during a traffic stop in exchange for getting rid of her traffic ticket. Garrett Mannerz pleaded not guilty to bribe receiving, official misconduct and sexual abuse. "This is a shocking case of a policeman abusing his power. This defendant was supposed to serve and protect the people, but chose instead to disgrace himself and the honest, hard-working members of the Nassau County Police Department," said Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice. more ›

A NYPD detective pulled a Plaxico Burress today, mistakenly shooting herself in the thigh while riding in a van on Riker's Island. According to police spokesmen, the detective and her partner had just delivered a prisoner and were leaving Rikers when the accident occurred. Police say the injury was not serious, and the officer was expected to be released from the hospital today. A spokesmen added, “It’s a police personnel matter.” As embarrassing as the incident might be, it's still not as bad as a cop shooting themselves in the thigh while giving a gun safety lesson. more ›

An off-duty NYPD officer was killed in a messy car crash in Long Island early this morning. The officer, whose name has not been released to the public yet, and another man were apparently speeding in a black 1994 Honda Accord on Carmen Ave. in Westbury around 2 a.m. this morning. They lost control of the car while passing another car, jumped a curb, and wrapped around a tree. The officer was trapped in the mangled wreckage of the vehicle, and was pronounced dead at the hospital. more ›

Police Officer Sonya Glover has been awarded $80,000 in a settlement from the city after claiming she was wrongfully brought up on departmental charges. Glover says she was wrongfully accused of attacking a friend during a game of Scrabble, and was forced into relationship counseling because her department assumed she and her friend were romantically involved. more ›

Brooklyn Bridge Park has been open for three days—which is apparently long enough for newspaper editors to demand a negative stories about it. In a classic hit piece, the Daily News blasts the greenspace for using money from a condo building on premises to pay for nine security officers, while other Brooklyn parks without such condo deals share a mere 15 officers. more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] An NYPD officer was shot inside a Bronx public housing project just before 12:30 p.m., according to police scanner reports. The wire dispatches indicate that an emotionally disturbed person shot an officer at 3073 Park Avenue in the Bronx and "barricaded [himself] with a gun inside the [apartment]." It's unclear if the officer was on duty at the time of the shooting, but responding officers put him in a patrol car and drove him to Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, according to the scanner. more ›

All of the 55 NYPD cops charged with drunk driving since 1999 pleaded down to non-felony charges and almost every single one of them remained on the force. Although the NYPD can fire any cop "who causes serious physical injury to another person while operating a motor vehicle and is determined to be unfit for duty due to the consumption of alcohol," a Daily News investigation reveals that officers accused of drunk driving often keep their jobs after pleading guilty to lesser offenses like driving while impaired or disorderly conduct. more ›

A therapist told Officer Frank Chiafari to "politely decline" when asked to tell the awful story of the day Travis the chimp mauled Charla Nash in CT, ripping off her hands and face, but recently he made an exception. According to the officer—who's been denied Workers Comp for a PTSD claim after shooting the animal—it all started with a "humorous-sounding" call across the radio early last year. “[It] came over as ‘monkey attacking someone,’" he told the Times. But as he drove to scene he thought “Wait a minute, that’s Travis.” He'd met the "friendly" chimpanzee before: Travis's owners had a towing company and would sometimes bring him along when police called them to move vehicles. Chiafari pulled up he saw what looked like a pile of clothes. “Then I realized it’s a human being,” he said. “It was all ripped apart.” That's when Travis began bashing the window of his cruiser. more ›

Three years before voting to rename a street in of honor an unarmed 23-year-old who was killed in a barrage of police bullets, a Queens Community Board rejected an application to rename a street in honor of a police officer killed in the line of duty. So following the board's controversial vote in favor of "Sean Bell Way," the family of deceased officer John Scarangella has again applied for a street renaming to memorialize the slain cop. But the chairwoman of Community Board 12, Adjoa Gzifa, opposes the renaming. "For every police officer that puts on a uniform and carries a gun, if they should perish in the line of duty, does that mean we have to rename a street for them?" more ›

The narcotics officer who lost his leg below the knee after getting pinned by a crashed car got a much-needed boost from a fellow NYPD amputee. Officer Eric Grimes was leading drug suspects into a police van in Brooklyn on Tuesday when two cars collided and jumped the curb, crushing his lower left leg and foot. When he awoke from surgery at Kings County Hospital later that night, a surprise visitor was waiting for him: Officer Rachid Elkadi, whose right leg was amputated below the knee in May 2006 after an off-duty motorcycle accident. Elkadi spent an hour with Grimes to show him that his amputation didn't have to be a career ender; Elkadi himself returned to work a year after his accident. Now a "field intelligence officer" in Queens, Elkadi spoke with the Daily News about his bedside visit: "[Grimes] let out a sigh of relief and said, 'You are a breath of fresh air. I needed to see you.' He asked me how my life has changed. I said, 'You are not limited to anything.'" more ›

An NYPD officer is accused of passing along personal information about a teenage arrestee to his younger brother and advising the lad to ask her out on a date. In an "exclusive" article headlined "Busted & Lusted," the Post reports that 27-year-old officer Shan France is being investigated for allegedly giving 15-year-old Destiny Russo's contact info to his sibling. Her lawyer says that France's brother found her MySpace profile and wrote, "My brother gave me your information and said we should hook up." more ›

An attempted mugging proved fatal for the attacker late yesterday evening, as a man followed a woman and her three-year-old child into their building shortly before midnight Saturday. The mugger apparently did not know that the pair's husband and father was a NYPD officer who was off-duty at the time. When the man attacked the woman and brandished a gun after they get off the elevator on the 3rd floor, the mother screamed. Her husband rushed from their apartment and shot the mugger once in the torso--a wound which was fatal. more ›

Reader Rob J. sent us this photo taken through a window looking out on Sixth Ave between Charlton and Vandam, snapped right after a police officer was thrown from his horse. We're told the officer has a shoulder injury, the horse is okay and was brought to the stable, and there's nothing more to see here, folks. more ›

An NYPD officer is accused of using his authority to sexually prey on and assault women. Officer Wilfredo Rosario has been suspended from his position at Harlem's 26th Precinct as he was arraigned on charges of first-degree sexual abuse, official misconduct, unlawful imprisonment and attempted coercion. The charges stem from an incident in which Rosario met a 27-year-old woman with her child while he was in uniform. He told the woman he could help her get a job as a school crossing guard and her child into an after-school program. The police officer took her name and information and told her he would contact her. more ›

Although Rev. Al Sharpton appeared with officer Christopher Ridley's family after the Mt. Vernon cop's death, advising people not to rush to judgment, questions about the shooting are turning in the direction of race and societal divisions. The Friday night shooting occurred when Ridley, off-duty police officer, tried to stop a fight and Westchester police shot at him. more ›