Police officers from both the regular and auxiliary force attended a second funeral in two days for a slain auxiliary police officer killed during a Greenwich Village rampage. Nineteen-year-old Eugene Marshalik was remembered at a funeral in Brooklyn by friends, family members, fellow cops, and city officials. Marshalik was remembered as a high achiever and someone dedicated to helping others. Mayor Bloomberg said, "He was a steadfast protector of his community, who would warn residents......

Yesterday, a grand jury decided to indict three detectives in the shooting of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man who had been celebrating the night before his wedding day at a Queens nightclub. The charges were manslaughter for Gescard Isnora and Michael Oliver and reckless endangerment for Marc Cooper. Isnora fired the first shot, one of 11 he eventually fired, while Oliver fired the most, 31 rounds. Cooper fired 4 times; in total, the......

The first day of grand jury deliberations in the Sean Bell shooting case ended without a verdict, but a new witness may have emerged. A janitor who went to a Queens police station house yesterday claims to have seen police shooting of three unarmed black men - and says he saw a "fourth man. The NYPD had always claimed there was a fourth person with a gun that made Bell and his friends "targets"......

There was finally a winner in the 12-state Mega Millions lottery. Actually, there are at least two winners that will split the $370 million payout. Alas, the winning tickets were not sold in New York, but in Cape May County in Southern Jersey and in Georgia. It's still possible that there are other winners as final results from California aren't available yet. The Mega Millions website says the delay is due to the "unprecedented......

Toxicology reports now show that Sean Bell, the unarmed man who was killed in a barrage of police bullets hours before his wedding, had a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit. Which gives the groups representing the police some soundbites regarding the events of the night. The Detectives' Endowment Association president Michael Palladino said, "[This report] gives some insight into why Sean Bell acted the way he did behind the wheel. His behavior was......

Yesterday, thousands of people walked down Fifth Avenue in to protest a police shooting against three unarmed men. Sean Bell was shot to death just hours before his wedding while his two friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, were wounded in a barrage of 50 bullets in less than a minute; undercover police claimed they saw a fourth man with a gun. The march was organized by the Reverend Al Sharpton, with the theme......

...Al Pirro, who did not appear during wife Jeanine Pirro's concession speech for the NY State Attorney General race. Pirro, who had 40% of the vote to Andrew Cuomo's 57%, gave her speech to a crowd of 100 supporters in Manhattan. The Empire Zone says that her spokesman did not ask her why Al was not there. Huh, we guess even her staff knows some topics are off limits. The Post suspects this is......

Yesterday, someone wrote on Gothamist Contribute, "One of the winners at the cat show today freaked out and took off. By show's end, it still had not been found. Poor thing. Maybe expecting cats to stay put like dogs is just a bad idea." Ack! Luckily, Russian Blue "Evgeny Pushenko" was found this morning at 9:20AM. Evgeny, who was present for the “best of show” segment, slipped away from a judge and sent everyone......

Hoorah! Leo, the snow leopard found abandoned in Pakistan, is now officially in the public eye at the Bronx Zoo. Last month, the State Department touted a very special arrangement with the Pakistani government, which allowed the 14 month old snow leopard to be sent to the Bronx Zoo temporarily, because Pakistan does not have snow leopard facilities. (Leo could not be relased into the wild because he never learned survival skills - he......

Venezulan President Hugo Chavez followed up his devilish U.N. appearance with a visit to Harlem's Mount Olivet Baptist Church, where his tirade has earned him a nickname from the NY Post: El Loco. (Yeah, it doesn't quite have the ring of "Wacko Jacko.") Though Chavez's main goal was to announce that he would distribute discounted heating oil to the poor, he took the time to continue his jabs at the Commander in Chief :......

If you tuned into Good Morning America this morning, you may have noticed Diane Sawyer extracting something from a safe. And, yes, that red and furry object was the new Tickle Me Elmo T.M.X. - T.M.X. for Tickle Me eXtreme. Not only the the doll talk in the third person and giggle, Elmo basically has a crazy laughing fit - slapping his knee, falling on his back and convulsing, getting back up, falling on......

Some readers have been asking about events related to the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Aside from the official city plans, which include moments of silence, reading of victims' names and time for the families to lay flowers at Ground Zero, as well as the lighting of Tribute in Light, a number of organizations and groups have events all weekend and on Monday. For instance, the September......

Yesterday, protesters gathered at a rally against the $3.5 billion Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn. Organized by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, the rally had entertainment along with words from politicians and famous anti-Atlantic Yards types, including Park Slope resident Steve Busecmi, according to the NY Times, who "read a poem...which included the line" “I’ve played a lot of crazies, but this seems insane.” Rosie Perez said, the project was "an insult to the poor"......

Mayor Bloomberg's momentary visit with President Bush yesterday at JFK Airport is being analyzed backwards and forwards. The Daily News says Bloomberg "blinked" in not chastising the President enough over the lack of Homeland Security funding for the city. The Mayor recounted his conversation for reporters:"I welcomed him to New York, took credit for the great weather... I did thank him for his efforts to make all homeland security moneys ... distributed based on......

Yesterday the bedrock blasting tests at Ground Zero went off without anyone really noticing. Tishman Construction is clearing the way for the Freedom Tower's foundation, and project manager Mel Raffini explained to NY1 that the blasting means there won't be "2,000 hours of drilling and chopping with a huge jackhammer. Versus this which takes several seconds. A total of fifty to sixty blasts, production blasts, which we expect to do in the next two......