Results tagged “shihofukada”

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.

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 police shot at Bell and his two friends 50 times. Two other officers, Michael Carey and Paul Headley, were called to testify but were not charged. A Fordham Law professor told Newsday that the grand jury's decision to charge three cops and clear two others "suggested [the grand jury was] careful."

The first day of grand jury deliberations in the Sean Bell shooting case ended without a verdict, but a new witness may have emerged.

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 number" of tickets sold. If you haven't checked your tickets yet, the winning numbers were 16-22-29-39-42 with a Mega Ball of 20.

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 reckless and life-threatening to the officer he hit. If the reports are true, his judgment was impaired."

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.

...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.

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."

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 was found as a baby by a goat herder!) In return, the Bronx Zoo will work with Pakistan to develop a snow leopard program, which Leo would return to.

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: . (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 :

Bush "is an alcoholic, a sick man and very dangerous. And he has a lot of power," Chavez said.

Continue reading "Hugo Chavez is Having the Best Week Ever"

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 his side, rolling to his front, slapping the floor, getting back up. Forget getting this for kids - this is totally what we're getting everyone for their birthdays. Or we're just going to buy a lot and sell them on eBay, most likely at a loss.

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 11 Memorial Quilts will be dedicated tomorrow at the Marriott Financial Center, the World Trade Center Survivor's Network will plant a "Survivor Tree" in City Hall Park on Sunday, New York Buddhist Church will have a floating lighted lantern ceremony at Houston and the Hudson River on Monday.

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" as well as “I don’t hate [Atlantic Yards developer] Bruce Ratner—I just don’t like him very much."

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 risk. He had said that a number of times... And while I wish the pot was bigger, and that is something that he has some control over, then, it really gets down to the House and the Senate, and that's where we've got to make our case. Other than that, you know, we just chitchatted about how nice it was for him to come."

Ah, a chitchat - that's what politics is all about. And it was really nice of Bloomberg to meet Bush - he took a helicopter from JFK to get back to City Hall for a bill signing "late," the NY Times notes, as well as how Bloomberg wore a blue (Democratic?) tie while Bush wore red. The bills the Mayor signed were establishing a retiree health benefits trust fund, exempting Corrections Emergency Response vehicles from fuel and tech requirements, and requiring additional reporting from the Administration for Children's Services. Then he headed to Times Square to help open the new Midtown location of Junior's, welcoming it to the "Crosswords of the World" and impliciting encouraging heartburn to many more people.

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 months equates to about fifteen minutes total with a noise that many people didn't hear it." Well, just because there won't be drilling at Ground Zero doesn't mean all the residents will be free of noise - there's always another development or roadwork that leads to some jackhammering at 7AM on a Saturday morning.