Two citations issued to arrested pug owner Chrissie Brodigan were dismissed today in a hearing at the MTA's Transit Adjudication Bureau. Hearing Officer Alexander Fox ruled the citations—one for failure to provide identification and another for failure to have dog in a container—were invalid because they had been "materially altered" by Officer Joel Witriol, who was absent from the hearing. Copies of the tickets given to Brodigan list 3:51 p.m. as the time the citations were issued, but official copies turned in by Officer Witriol to the Bureau showed the time was crossed out and changed to 4:51 p.m. more ›

Though some bloggers have shrugged off Monday's allegedly rough arrest of a woman who was carrying her pug through the subway as "breathtakingly minor," the incident's certainly major enough to have gotten the attention of New York's top cop. Or, at least a reporter was able to ask NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly whether officer Joel Witriol used excessive force and made sexist remarks while arresting Chrissie Brodigan, who was trying to carry her sick pug out of the subway station. more ›