The NYPD released surveillance footage of this morning's explosion near the Army recruiting center in Times Square. The footage shows a bicyclist approaching the building and an explosion taking place after he leaves. more ›

Nothing says press conference like raiding a 32 stores in what the city dubs "Counterfeit Triangle" and hauling away over a $1 million worth of brand-name products. The raid, taking down stores in the area bounded by Canal Street, Walker Street and Centre Street, occurred in the early morning, with cops using bolt-cutters to gain entry and tractor-trailers to take the haul away Coach, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbanna, Dior, Prada, Rolex, Fendi, Burberry, Calvin Klein, Dora the Explorer and Oakley merchandise. more ›

You may recall that the original Freedom Tower design had to be scrapped (because the NYPD thought it was too susceptible to attack) and redesigned with a concrete base. Now the Daily News' I-Team takes up concerns law enforcement officials have with "security weaknesses" in the new towers at World Trade Center. more ›

There's trouble brewin' at everyones favorite chain coffee shop. WCBS is reporting that there has been a shooting at a midtown Starbucks. The BNN confirms with a location: 120 W 56th Street, and reports a possible robbery as well. The NYPD are currently still looking for the suspect. more ›

The Daily News put together a map detailing the number of stop-and-frisks on the subway - and the racial breakdown of these stop-and-frisks. As the accompanying article makes clear (as well as interviews with people who have been stopped - 1, 2) how cops can stop anyone , though black and Hispanic riders make up about half of the subway riding population, 88% percent of the people stopped are black or Hispanic. The NYPD told the News, "Subway crime is down, in part, because of stops. Officers make stops based on reasonable suspicion, and the numbers reflect the times, places and circumstances where those observations take place." more ›

The NYPD's recruiting woes appear to be continuing through 2008, with a sharp drop-off in the number of candidates applying to sit for the Police Officer Exam, which is the first step to qualifying to enter the Police Academy. According to the New York Post, the number of test takers is down 20% from number of people who took the exam at the same time last year. "Slightly fewer than 20,000 have applied for the Feb. 23 test, down from the roughly 25,000 who filed last year. In October 2004, more than 35,000 registered for the test." more ›

Date : Sunday Feb. 3rd / Location : Lexington and E 48th, Manhattan The video is pretty nuts. We've put in a call to the NYPD to see if an investigation was opened. more ›

An East Village woman says she was punched in the face by an unhinged cabbie when she insisted on using the taxi’s credit card machine to pay her fare. Tamara Perez had arrived outside her apartment when she realized she was out of cash, so she told the driver she’d be paying with plastic using the self-automated card reader installed in the back. more ›

When you're found to be making pipe bombs amidst an apartment arsenal of weapons and then confess to painting swastikas in your Brooklyn Heights neighborhood, expect the book to be thrown at you repeatedly. Ivaylo Ivanov was charged with over 100 criminal counts for his activities. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an escaped patient on the Van Wyck Expressway in Queens, a homicide on Bruner and Burke Aves. in the Bronx, and shots fired on Bainbridge St. and Lewis Ave. in Brooklyn.
• Jurors in the Nixzmary Brown murder trial were sent home for the second consecutive day Thursday as the defense, prosecution, and judge met in secret to discuss potentially bombshell evidence that's yet to be revealed.
• The NYPD is searching for three police impersonators who knocked on the door of a Cypress Hills, Brooklyn home last night and then pushed their way in, tying up and robbing the 77-year-old and 39-year-old male and female occupants. The robbers were wearing police windbreakers, sunglasses, and dark hats, with at least two of them brandishing pistols.

The NYC Medical Examiner's office says Heath Ledger's autopsy is inconclusive, citing the need to more tests. Spokeswoman Ellen Borakove said, "The autopsy is inconclusive and we have to do further testing which includes toxicology and tissue testing. We expect to have results in about 10 days to two weeks." more ›

The story of Ivaylo Ivanov just gets more and more strange. First, he calls the cops saying that he was shot in the hand only to admit that he shot himself. Next, the police investigate the situation only to find a cache of assorted weapons and pipe bombs at Ivanov's residence. Now the 31-year-old ex-con admits to defacing Brooklyn Heights with swastikas last year. more ›

Yesterday the police announced they arrested 61 people for larceny and insurance fraud after they sold their cars for parts and tried to claim they were stolen. The NYPD actually ran the Queens "chop shop" where customers would typically have a middleman drop off their cars. more ›

The NYPD released a photograph of a man who attacked a woman with a meat cleaver in Brooklyn two weeks ago. Yes, a meat cleaver! more ›

Mayor Bloomberg has announced that the city will crackdown on the abuse of parking permits issued to civil servants, reducing the overall number by 20%. The change comes after the Post revealed in November that “149 separate government entities had qualified for the coveted placards last year, ranging from the state lottery to the US Navy recruiting office, which was allocated an astonishing 110 permits.” more ›

The NYPD may have the anti-graffiti task force, but with many graffiti crimes perpetrated in the subway tunnels, the NYC Transit Authority has created its own anti-graffiti team. The Daily News tagged along with the Eagle Team, a "surveillance squad quietly formed three months ago." more ›

As violence continues in Pakistan in the wake of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination, New York City's Pakistani population was shocked by the news, watching news coverage and holding vigils. One woman said to the Daily News, "For us, this is like losing [President John] Kennedy. She wanted peace. She wanted democracy. And she lost her life for these things." And a man told the NY Times, “I think there will be a lot of violence after this, and chances are pretty slim for democracy." more ›

Overall major felony crime is also down 26% since 2001. Mayor Bloomberg said, "When I came into office, many believed it was impossible to drive crime, particularly murders, down any further. Yet, beginning in 2002, crime declined steadily and murders fell below 600 annually for the first time in 40 years. That happened again in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. Now, in 2007, we have reached another milestone, murders could potentially fall below 500 - and that includes a decrease in random murders where victims don't know the perpetrators." In other words, take that, Rudy! more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an industrial accident on 10th Ave. near 30th St. in Manhattan, a man down an elevator shaft at 50 West 15th St. in Manhattan, and a homicide at Neck Parkway and 42nd Ave. in Queens.
• Not only have investigators found hard drives scrubbed clean of potentially damaging e-mail messages related to Troopergate, the Spitzer administration is refusing to even identify the names of the Internet Service Providers that were used to transmit them.
• There's a new site online for "non-pretentious people who live in Flatbush," or perhaps those who are just interested in the Brooklyn neighborhood.

Silver and gold are so last season, if you're a trendsetting criminal -- you know it's all about the copper these days. And where better to find it than in brownstone Brooklyn? The Brooklyn Paper reports:

At least four heists of the once-cheap electrical conductor have been pulled off in Brownstone Brooklyn since June, and a few others were foiled when the cops caught the bad guys red-handed before they could make off with their ill-gotten orange gold. more ›

The NYPD detectives working the homicide investigation of Carol Simon have identified a suspect in her killing, although they are not publicizing his identity. Simon was shot as she was returning to her car where her son was waiting for her at a gas station. The killing occurred Saturday evening in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, as an argument between two men turned violent and one of the men pulled a gun. more ›

Operation Lucky Bag, the NYPD program that threatened to ensnare good Samaritans along with subway thieves, is making a comeback after being effectively shut down earlier this year. Initially, the program involved cops leaving bags of merchandise, wallets, or purses on subway benches. When someone picked them up and didn't immediately turn them over to the police or subway personnel, he or she was arrested. According to the police, Operation Lucky Bag netted 101 arrests... more ›

Okay, so we've heard about how Rudy Giuliani's mayoral administration billed his police security detail expenses - accrued during trips to the Hamptons, possibly visiting then-mistress Judi Nathan - to various obscure city agencies. And then there are reports that Nathan, now married to the former mayor, used her NYPD security detail to chauffeur friends and family. Naturally, now there's talk of the police security expenses of Giuliani's then-wife Donna Hanover. The Post's David Seifman... more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Jerome Ave. in the Bronx, a stabbing at Ft. Hamilton H.S. in Brooklyn, and a fall victim on 88th St. in Queens.
• Hillary and Rudy initially attempted to settle things by seeing who would yell "uncle" first as they tried to crush each other's hand.
• A 31-year-old NJ man says that he throttled his mother with his bare hands after she criticized him for his messy housekeeping, but it was an accident that he actually killed her.
• The NYPD gets serious about gun control when maintenance workers find two missing service pistols stashed in the ceiling of the 90th Precinct.
• A new venue for identity theft: cloning license plates for congestion pricing. It's happening in London and is one more potential headache for NYers.
• A college senior badly injured in a car accident saved the lives of at least four people through the donation of his organs.
• The "The Stop the Madrassa Community Coalition" is demanding that the woman they drummed out of a job apologize for accusing them of making "anti-Muslim and anti-Arab comments."
• Save yourself a trip to the mall. Design your own holiday sweater online!

When the police announced they had arrested Linda Stein's assistant for beating Stein to death with a yoga stick, many people wondered what a yoga stick was. Some suggested it might be a weighted Pilates bar or pole, but the Sun reports on some possible issues with the alleged "yoga stick" confession. According to police, assistant Natavia Lowery was pushed over the edge by the brash and rude Stein on October 30, causing her to... more ›

The police shot and killed a mentally ill man accused of slashing his roommate's throat yesterday morning in the East New York section of Brooklyn. This comes six days after the police fatally shot a mentally ill Brooklyn teen. Michael Angel Torres told police that his roommate David Kostovski slashed him with a knife while he was sleeping. The police found Kostovski a few blocks from his Autumn Avenue apartment and saw him holding a... more ›

The second 911 call between police shooting victim Khiel Coppin's mother and a 911 operator seems to suggests some misinformation. Coppin's mother Denise Owens claimed she told the 911 operator who called her back that her son did not have a gun. Here's an excerpt (you can read the transcript here and hear it here) of the call at 7:05PM, 14 minutes before police shot at 18-year-old Coppin 20 times: Female: Hello Operator: Hi Maam... more ›

A spray-painted swastika was found on the door of a Columbia University Teacher's College professor yesterday morning. Professor Elizabeth Midlarsky, who is Jewish and researches the Holocaust, said she had been "more public" about her work on the Holucaust, "I think there's a very hate-filled person who is an extreme coward. It makes my blood run cold." more ›

The NYPD released surveillance photographs from the drug buys that ultimately landed Preppy Killer Robert Chambers and his girlfriend Shawn Kovell in jail. These photographs were taken in the couple's East 57th Street rent-stabilized one-bedroom - looks like they may have spray painted Shawn's name onto a door or wall more ›