A lawyer for the cyclist who was shown on video being violently shoved off his bike by a rookie cop during a July Critical Mass ride says that prosecutors will drop the charges today. Officer Patrick Pogan wrote in his report that cyclist Christopher Long had been weaving in and out of traffic and deliberately tried to hit him with his bike on the night of July 25th. The video, as you'll recall, told......

With activists and citizen journalists pouring into Minneapolis in advance of the Republican National Convention (which starts September 1st), police there are already getting warmed up for what's sure to be another full-frontal assault on the bill of rights – which won't surprise anyone who protested the GOP's last convention in New York City. Late Monday night three videographers from the New York-based Glass Bead Collective were detained by Minneapolis police officers, who spent about......

35-year-old Marlon Smith, who was allegedly beaten, pistol whipped and maced by two off-duty female cops during a road rage incident in the Bronx on August 15th, says he's suing the city for $25 million. According to a witness, the altercation was sparked when Kollen Robinson, 24, and Michelle Anglin, 37, yelled at Smith to close his car door so they could pass by in Robinson's SUV. An exchange of insults quickly became physical, with......

Today's allegation of police brutality comes from 20-year-old demolition worker Raphael Jefferson, who's planning to sue the city after police allegedly "slammed him down on a car hood, repeatedly struck him with a baton and Maced his eyes" while he was handcuffed on a Bronx street on June 20th. Like last month's videotaped police beating, this one also comes with video, recorded from a bystander's cell phone. The Post says the video shows police officers......

Annette Mateo appears to have been one toke over the line last night when she allegedly carjacked an NYPD van and took it for a joyride that almost immediately became devoid of joy. According to the Post, Mateo had gone to file an unspecified complaint at a police station in Harlem and became frustrated with the lackadaisical response from officers there. Storming out of the building at 9:40 p.m., she came upon two rookie cops......

Two female NYPD cops did some serious damage to a Bronx man early Friday night, allegedly pistol whipping him during a road rage incident. Michelle Anglin, 37, and Koleen Robinson, 24, were off-duty when they became enraged at 35-year-old Marlon Smith for leaving the driver’s door of his Suburban open, almost scraping Robinson's SUV, the Daily News reports. F bombs and A bombs were promptly fired at Smith by the cops. When he responded with......

WCBS wants you to be alarmed, at least if you live in a “sleepy New Jersey town” like the ones Bergen County, where local police are using Homeland Security grants to assemble a stockpile of sweet machine guns, particularly the totally bad-ass Heckler & Koch UMP (pictured). Reactions among sleepy locals range from "It's a waste of our tax money," to “I think if they think they need them, then it is good that they......

Cheye Calvo, mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, has asked the Department of Justice to investigate the Prince George's County police after they raided his house and killed his two Labrador retrievers. The police were tracking 417 pounds of marijuana--32 pounds had been addressed to Calvo's wife Trinity Tomsic. Calvo's mother-in-law asked the deliveryman (really an undercover cop) to leave the package on the porch. When Calvo returned home, he took the package in;per the Baltimore......

Twelve city council members are calling on Manhattan District Attorney Robert M Morgenthau to drop the charges against Christopher Long, the cyclist who was seen being bodyslammed to the curb by a rookie cop in a videotape of a Critical Mass ride on July 25th. The council members – who include Rosie Mendez, Letitia James, and Alan Gerson but not mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn – are also demanding that Morgenthau open a wider investigation into......

NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters yesterday that in a “relatively short period of time” people will be able to send “video and text straight to 911 to increase the flow of information.” Kelly didn’t go into details about how the technology would work, but he did say that “generally speaking, it’s helpful when people record an event taking place that helps us during an investigation.” The commissioner’s statement would seem to include recent “events”......

Environmental group Times Up! is taking advantage of all the publicity generated by the video of a cop shoving a cyclist off his bike by reminding everyone that this is hardly the first such incident, nor the only one caught on video. The group points out that in 2007 one Richard Vazquez was taken down by a cop in Times Square during a Critical Mass ride, and in 2006 Adrienne Wheeler, a Critical Mass legal......

That video depicting a rookie cop bodyslamming a cyclist to the curb in Times Square? Just routine policework, according to the president of the police union. Apparently 22-year-old rookie Patrick Pogan was simply acting "under direct orders” when he spotted cyclist Christopher Long “creating a hazardous condition for the public and took action," union head Patrick Lynch told reporters yesterday. See, the video actually proves Pogan was just doing his job:Instead of slowing down or......

The cyclist who was videotaped being body slammed off his bike in an apparently unprovoked attack by an NYPD officer during Friday night’s Critical Mass ride has been identified as Christopher Long, a 29-year-old resident of Bloomfield, New Jersey who works at the Union Square Greenmarket. His boss tells the Daily News that Long is an Army veteran and "mild-mannered environmental activist." Craig Radhuber, 54, was riding behind Long Friday night and describes incident:......

Another Critical Mass ride, another stunning display of police brutality. Watch as one of New York's finest violently shoves a cyclist off his bicycle, launching him through the air to the curb at 46th street and Seventh Avenue during Friday night's monthly Critical Mass ride. digg_url = 'http://digg.com/world_news/NYPD_Knocks_Cyclist_to_Curb_Unbelievable'; Although a judge ruled in 2006 that the monthly Critical Mass bicycle rides could proceed without a permit, the NYPD's stance remains somewhat adversarial. Though the city......

Photo via Gerry Visco, by Elsaa Rensaa. The film Captured documents the documentarian Clayton Patterson (watch the trailer after the jump), and will screen in New York on the 20th anniversary of the Tompkins Square Park police riots, which Patterson famously filmed ("little brother is watching big brother," he's noted in the past). Recently, the artist, writer, community activist, and photographer who for the past 25 years has documented the Lower East Side...from drag......

Drug charges against four men were dropped when a video showed they had no contact with undercover police officers before they were arrested. Four cops had claimed they bought crack cocaine from the men, but the video showed otherwise and prosecutors said the accused men, Jose Colon and Maximo Colon and two others, didn't do the crime. WCBS 2 reports, "In the 6 months it took to clear the Colon brothers names, they lost their......

A number of police unions representing different segments of the NYPD filed a joint complaint against the City with the Board of Collective Bargaining, saying that Mayor Bloomberg's effort to cut the number of park-anywhere-you-feel-like placards is an economic hardship and a violation of state labor laws. The suit does acknowledge that there is nothing in union contracts regarding the issuance of placards, however. One of Bloomberg's anti-congestion initiatives has been to reduce the vast......

The Williamsburg Stabber, who is more than likely a group of stabbers, has struck again. In April two cops walking the beat told us "the increased police presence was in response to a spate of machete-wielding gang violence" -- well, a lot of good the increased security has done. A tipster writes in to tell us about last weekend's Saturday morning stabbing, which police suspect was part of a gang initiation and in step with......

Photo courtesy Clinton Hill Blog. It’s a common complaint from cyclists that the NYPD doesn’t seem too interested in ticketing the myriad drivers who use the city’s bike lanes as a double-parking lot. (My Bike Lane is dedicated to the phenomenon.) And it’s not uncommon to see a cop car idling in a bike lane while the officer does a little shopping. But this is getting ridiculous: A Clinton Hill blog reader reports that the......

Photograph, top, of Alain Robert climbing the Times building by Carol Quillen; photograph, below, of Renaldo Clarke climbing by Michael Chan After two incidents of X-treme attention whoring Thursday afternoon, cops were stationed around the perimeter of the New York Times building on 41st St. Friday, successfully preventing anyone else from taking a shot at scaling the side of the new skyscraper. Famous urban climber Alain Robert drew quite a crowd as he climbed......

In March, simultaneous installations in two Chelsea galleries – one called The Assassination of Barack Obama, the other The Assassination of Hillary Clinton – were canceled “due to extreme legal pressures,” according to LVHRD. This morning the artist, Yazmany Arboleda, again attempted to hang his work in an empty storefront across from the New York Times building and got as far as putting up the name of the exhibit in the window before the......

A gang of five trailed a pair of off-duty cops in Washington Heights around midnight last night and jumped them in an attempted robbery that did not go well. Things went sideways for the assailants almost immediately when one of them initiated the attack by picking up a wooden folding chair from the trash and hitting one of the officers on the back of the head with it. The approach has been known to work......

Someone went on a rampage just before noon yesterday, shooting five people standing at a bus stop in a fusillade of gunfire in Jackson Heights, Queens. It wasn't as much a rampage, exactly, as a reckless attempt to kill a single person by firing into a crowd. The alleged target was a 21-year-old man, who was shot in the side before staggering into a restaurant and collapsing. Police are searching not just for a single......

If you're walking home through the West Village tonight, you may be wishing you'd brought your galoshes, or waders, or a rowboat. A major water main break on West 10th St. has flooded the area surrounding it. Reader Erik Dane ( of The Foggy Monocle) sent us this on-the-spot photo of West 4th completely underwater. He reports that cops and firemen are swarming the area to get the situation under control. So if you're......

Photograph by catelinp on Flick The raccoon seen in a tree at East 88th Street and 1st Avenue ultimately died after the police tried to capture it. The Post reports the cops "bungled" the raccoon rescue operation, firing tranquilizer darts "deep in its body." Animal Control said the animal was euthanized because it would have been "difficult, if not impossible, to remove them." But some residents told the Post the police were joking about......

A man was killed by a "bullet from his own gun" on the roof of a Midtown building at 30 East 40th Street. The police say the man, who was found with "rope, a hacksaw and three Dell laptops in the intruder's backpack," may be a man with a number of burglary and stolen property arrests. A building employee called the police after discovering a break-in. Superintendent Joe Aguasviva told the Daily News he had......

After getting spooked and throwing its mounted officer yesterday, Aldo the police horse managed to make its way home to the station house at 6th Ave. and Ericcson Pl. Aldo freaked out at the sound of screeching brakes in Soho yesterday afternoon, causing him to throw his rider, who was taken to St. Vincent's with minor injuries. After getting the cop off his back, Aldo ran free through the streets before ambling about ten blocks......

Cops are on the lookout for a pants-less NJ man accused of breaking into an Edison, NJ woman's home, disrobing, and molesting its sleeping occupant. The police are now recommending that people not leave windows or doors unlocked because the nude intruder weirdo remains on the loose. Thursday morning, a 39-year-old woman awoke to find a nude man in bed with her and stroking her thigh around 3 a.m. He was an uninvited guest and......

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.......

Six employees at a Manhattan S&M club were arrested this week and arraigned on misdemeanor prostitution charges yesterday. The women were busted for offering more than the standard whips, chains, and ropes that other dungeons offer. The six women, ranging in age from 19 to 39, allegedly offered to extend their services to full sexual intercourse for an additional $220. That's when undercover cops had to say the safety word, "Busted." Presumably, they weren't trussed......