A man scaled the front of the New York Times building in Midtown Manhattan New York City

June 15, 2008 | in NYTIMES

A man scaled the front of the New York Times building in Midtown Manhattan in the predawn darkness early Wednesday — the third time in five weeks that a climber had scaled the one-year-old skyscraper, which is sheathed in thin ceramic rods. After staying on the building for about four hours, the man surrendered to police officers and was arrested around 5:20 a.m.

Unlike the two previous climbers, this one — identified as David Malone, an activist who studies Al Qaeda — did not attempt to make his way to the roof. Instead, he unfurled a banner around the fifth floor of the 52-story building, before climbing a few more stories. Several hours elapsed during which the police appeared to alternate between trying to go after the man and waiting for him to surrender.

Mr. Malone was taken out of the building’s West 40th Street entrance in handcuffs at 5:39 a.m. and placed in an ambulance. He was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. The police said charges were pending.

The police received a call at 1:23 a.m. Wednesday alerting them that there was a person scaling the skyscraper, at 620 Eighth Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets. The authorities closed off Eighth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets to traffic, as well as West 41st Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, diverting vehicles onto other streets. Sidewalks below the Times building were closed to pedestrians.

Police officers tried to catch the climber by cutting through a window on the fifth floor of the building, but after having briefly rested at that level, he had already climbed past them.

The climbing episodes have at this point become something of an embarrassment for The Times. On June 5, two men scaled the building, hours apart, reaching the roof before being arrested. The first was Alain Robert, a 45-year-old French stuntman known for climbing tall buildings; the second was Renaldo Clarke, 32, of Brooklyn, who said he wanted to draw attention to the problem of malaria.

At the time, Times officials said they would tighten security and take other precautions to prevent anyone from climbing up the building again.

Now, just over a month later, someone has, yet again.

The Daily News reported on its Web site early Wednesday morning that it had received a call from the latest climber and that he had identified himself as David Malone, 29, of Connecticut, who had dropped out of the University of Michigan to study Al Qaeda.

A police officer subsequently confirmed that Mr. Malone was the climber. What appears to be Mr. Malone’s Web site, called Bin Laden’s Plan, states that Mr. Malone “independently researching bin Laden and publicly advocating the aggressive isolation and destruction of Al Qaeda.” The site goes on to claim that Mr. Malone “has successfully predicted some of the major events of bin Laden’s war” and is now trying to warn of efforts by the terrorist network to goad the United States to invade Pakistan and Iran. (Mr. Malone did not immediately respond to an e-mail message from The Times, sent while he was still on the building, requesting an interview.)

Witnesses said the climber began his ascent near the northern entrance to the building, on West 41st Street, and made his way toward the western entrance, which is on Eighth Avenue, opposite from the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

“I thought he was a worker,” said Michael Pabon, 32, who was outside the bus terminal when he saw the man begin to scale the building. “He turned up to the letter ‘H’ and climbed above it,” Mr. Pabon said, referring to the letter H in the “The” of the New York Times logo, which is painted in giant black letters on the ceramic rods on the Eighth Avenue side of the building.

It was above the “T” in “The” that the climber hung a white banner with red fliers stuck to it. The banner referenced Mr. Malone’s Web site about Mr. bin Laden. Some of the red fliers were also stuck to the windows of various floors in the building as the climber went up.

Witnesses said the climber was using his cellphone repeatedly during his ascent. “He’s some kind of professional,” Mr. Pabon said. “You could see he knows what he’s doing.”

After reaching the 11th floor, Mr. Malone faced out toward the street and talked on his cellphone for several minutes. He then descended to a spot between the ninth and 10th floors. Police officers on the fifth floor had breached a floor-to-ceiling window and some were outfitted with climbing cables and hard hats. A large inflatable cushion had been placed on the sidewalk in front of the main entrance, presumably to save the man if he jumped.

The Times building was designed by the architect Renzo Piano and opened last year. Both Mr. Robert and the second climber also scaled the building using the horizontal ceramic rods that sheath the exterior — and are one of the building’s most distinctive features. The rods are intended to allow sunlight while keeping out heat, helping the building use energy more efficiently.

There is a long history of attention-grabbing stunts at New York skyscrapers. The French stunt artist Philippe Petit walked along a high wire strung between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974, a feat that is the subject of a new documentary, “Man on a Wire.” In 1977, the mountain climber George H. Willig scaled the south tower of the trade center.

In 2006, another stuntman, Jeb Corliss, was arrested after trying to jump off the observation deck of the Empire State Building.

Prosecuting the stuntmen has sometimes proved difficult.

In the most recent cases, Mr. Robert, who climbed the Times building on June 5, faced misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment, trespassing and graffiti. But on June 12 a grand jury decided to dismiss those charges, though it did allow Manhattan prosecutors to proceed with two counts of disorderly conduct against Mr. Robert. Lawyers for Mr. Clarke, who faced the same charges as Mr. Robert, said they hoped that he, too, would only face disorderly conduct charges.

On June 26, City Council members introduced a bill that would explicitly make it illegal to scale or jump from a building 25 feet or taller.

Queens Man Obsessed With Trains Is Arrested Again

June 15, 2008 | in NYTIMES

Darius McCollum knows the New York City Transit system well. Perhaps too well.

For about a quarter of a century, he has taken trains and buses for joy rides and impersonated Metropolitan Transportation Authority workers, racking up 23 transit-related arrests. The first came in 1981, after he drove the E train to the World Trade Center. He was last in the news in 2006, when he was charged with criminal impersonation.

Mr. McCollum, 43, of East Elmhurst, Queens, was arrested again on Saturday after he tried to pass himself off as a subway worker, the police said.

When he was arrested, just after 2 a.m. on the platform at the 59th Street/Columbus Circle subway station, he was wearing navy blue clothes similar to a transit uniform, and had a hard hat, transit-logo gloves, a knapsack and documents related to the transit system in his possession, the police said.

He faces charges of criminal trespass, criminal impersonation and possession of burglary tools, the police said. Five of his previous arrests included stealing buses, the police said.

His latest journey into handcuffs started in Queens, when he boarded the No. 7 train at the 103rd Street station and rode it — as a normal passenger — into Manhattan, debarking at a Times Square station, the police said.

There, his history caught up with him. Officers spotted him posing as an employee and recognized that, despite his blue outfit, he was not a genuine transit worker.

They followed him when he got on a northbound No. 1 train. When he debarked at the Columbus Circle station and entered an area sealed off to the public, the police took him into custody.

Speaking from the station, Officer Martin Brown, a police spokesman, said that he was wearing transit clothes to make people think he was an employee.

Mr. McCollum did not speak to reporters while he was being placed into a black car by detectives. A large man, he hung his bald head low and shuffled forward, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Mr. McCollum’s mother, Elizabeth, 82, said her son had Asperger’s syndrome and had a lifelong obsession with trains.

She said she had last heard from her son three days ago, when he told her he would arrive at her home in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Thursday, taking a Greyhound bus from New York City. But he never showed up.

She said he had been living in Queens with her niece and had told her that he was working in a warehouse.

“They arrest him every time if he has got on anything that looks like transit clothes,” she said by telephone.

She said she and her New York City, had tried many times over the years to keep Mr. McCollum, who is their only child, from being arrested again by trying to persuade him to stay with them in North Carolina. But to no avail. He slips away and returns to New York City.

“He just loves New York,” she said. “He knows the people in Transportation. And he goes up there to be around them.”

His mother said that she had been telling him that “he has got to learn,” and added that hiring lawyers for him over the years had put her in debt.

But she said he needed help.

“With all these kids who are autistic, they slip behind the cracks, but nobody is trying to help him at all,” she said. “I tried when I lived in New York. Every time he was arrested he wasn’t hurting anybody, and nobody could figure out what is his problem.”

She said that sometimes, when he was younger and they were living in Jamaica, Queens, she did not know where he was and people would tell her he was in the subway. “I used to call them and go down there and look for him,” she said.

She said that he would put together model trains and other toys with ease: “We had all kinds of toys, like trains and monorails, and different kinds of things when he was growing up. And he went on to bigger and better things.”

Girl Is Killed Saturday night in Far Rockaway Queens

May 19, 2008 | in NYTimes

The teenagers were dancing before the squat backdrop of a housing project Saturday night in Far Rockaway, Queens, when the gunfire began. They all ran, until someone turned and saw that one girl was not running. She had dropped to the ground without a sound, a bullet hole in her temple.

The girl, Brandon Bethea, 15, whose family had moved her out of the projects last year, not long after her friend was killed by a stray bullet, was herself killed in what the police and neighbors said was a shooting that had nothing to do with her.

It was exactly what her family had feared, and the reason they had moved to Jamaica, Queens. But she returned on Saturday to see friends and to show off her newest dance moves.

“I guess we should have moved further,” her grieving stepfather, Robert Drakeford, said on Sunday at the family’s apartment, where a long line of friends and family had come to offer condolences. “We should have left New York altogether.”

As of Sunday evening, no one had been arrested in the shooting. Neighbors said two groups of young men — boys, even — from two different sections of buildings in the Redfern Houses complex had been feuding for so long that no one really remembered what the fight was about.

“It’s the front versus the back,” said Sonya Smith, 37. “These are babies, 12 years and up. They never say anything. They just start shooting.” Another woman, Keisha Brown, 20, said, “It’s just stupid.”

The shooting occurred shortly after 11 p.m. in front of 12-70 Redfern Avenue. About 30 young men and women were doing a hip-hop dance known as the toe wop, a combination of fast footwork, knee bends and hand clapping.

“It was a hot day,” said Precious McClendon, a home health aide and a dance teacher. “Everybody was outside enjoying the weather.”

Another home health aide, Elisa Reyes, 24, was part of the group.

“Someone came from somewhere else, and they started shooting,” she said. “Everyone was dancing and having fun, and all of a sudden, shots were fired. Everybody started running. Then we realized she got hit, and everybody started screaming.”

Brandon, the fourth of six children, was known as a bright student who was preparing to enter high school in the fall. When a friend, Latina Bilbro, known as “Peanut,” was killed nearby two years ago, in front of 13-02 Redfern Avenue, Brandon’s family had had enough.

“Not far from where Brandon was killed,” Mr. Drakeford said. “It was random as well. I thought, ‘It’s time to get out of here.’ It’s hard for her and her brothers and sisters to go outside. We were worried about the gunplay out there.”

Little seems to have changed. On Sunday morning, a few hours later and a few blocks from where Brandon was killed, five men were shot in yet another argument-turned-gunfight, this one at Beach 21st Street. The police said two men had been arguing, and one left, returning with a gun and opening fire. When officers arrived, they found four wounded men; a fifth soon arrived at a nearby hospital. The men, ranging from 20 to 66, had gunshot wounds mostly to the legs and arms. All were in stable condition.

The police said that there did not seem to be any link between those shootings and Brandon’s death.

Later, officers pulled over a vehicle matching the description of the one that the gunman was said to have been driving, and, after finding a .357 Magnum revolver, arrested six people in it, the police said. Of those, five — all from Nassau County — were charged with possession of a weapon. Three of those arrested were teenage girls.

That Brandon died dancing, her favorite thing, was but the smallest of comforts to friends on Sunday afternoon. “She was the best dancer to me,” Ms. McClendon said. “You teach her one time. She caught on real quick.”

Ann Farmer and Daryl Khan contributed reporting.

22-year-old man arrested Sunday and charged with killing a shopkeeper in Brooklyn

May 19, 2008 | in NYTimes

A 22-year-old man was arrested Sunday and charged with killing a shopkeeper who was found dead in her dry cleaning store in Brooklyn last week, the police said.

The suspect, Jamal Winter, was arrested at his home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, early yesterday morning. He was charged with murder and robbery, the police said.

The killing shook up the Windsor Terrace neighborhood where residents and neighbors described the victim, Kyung-Sook Woo, 52, as a mainstay, a determined but lovable fixture in the community, who despite being robbed at least twice remained committed to serving her customers.

An employee of Mrs. Woo’s at the Eden Dry Cleaners and Tailoring shop, at 1623 10th Avenue, arrived Friday morning and found her boss dead inside.

The police believe she was strangled the night before.

Staten Island congressman Fossella possible re-election

May 19, 2008 | in NYTimes

There has been nothing but silence coming from the embattled Staten Island congressman, Vito J. Fossella, regarding his plans to run for re-election this year. And that uncertainty has caused waves of concern not only among Republicans in New York City, but in Washington as well.

All signs indicate that Mr. Fossella, a Republican who was arrested in Virginia on May 1 on a drunken driving charge and then admitted to fathering a child out of wedlock, is leaning toward running for a sixth term in November. He has been telling friends and advisers that he thinks he can win. And though he canceled a fund-raiser scheduled for this past weekend, he has five or six events planned for the coming month, his spokeswoman said.

And on Saturday, he marched in the Memorial Day Parade in the Great Kills section of the island. He was greeted warmly while marching and while sitting on a platform with other politicians at the end of the route.

But for all his popularity on Staten Island, long a Republican stronghold, Mr. Fossella, 43, faces daunting obstacles. If convicted of drunken driving, he would have to serve a mandatory five-day jail sentence. His acknowledgment of an extramarital affair — he has three children with his wife, Mary Pat — has clearly upset many voters in his conservative-leaning district.

He also confronts what many political analysts and Republican strategists view as Democratic momentum going into the fall elections. Three times this year, Democrats have defeated Republicans in special Congressional elections, most recently last week in a staunchly Republican district in Mississippi.

This year, said Guy V. Molinari, the former borough president and dean of the Republican Party on the island, “is a bad Republican year, politically, and that doesn’t help matters.”

For all those reasons, the prospect of a scandal-tainted Mr. Fossella on the ballot in November has caused more than a little apprehension among Republican leaders in New York and Washington, though they decline to speak publicly about Mr. Fossella’s problems.

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader, has contacted Daniel M. Donovan Jr., the Staten Island district attorney, to discuss the possibility of his running should Mr. Fossella resign or decide not to seek re-election.

William J. Smith, Mr. Donovan’s spokesman, said that there was little use speculating on what the district attorney might do, while Mr. Fossella remained silent on his plans.

Julie Shutley, a spokeswoman for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, sought to put the best face on the situation. “The 13th Congressional District has continually sent Republican representation to Congress,” she said, adding that it was a district that believed in “lowering taxes and a strong national security.”

But when asked about the party’s prospects should Mr. Fossella decide to run, she declined to comment. And John S. Friscia, the chairman of the Republican Party on Staten Island, did not return repeated calls seeking comment on the party’s prospects.

Even Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has been a reliable source of campaign money and support for Mr. Fossella in the past, said he was uncertain whether he would support the congressman in a re-election campaign.

Many Republicans on Staten Island, however, seem to be sticking with Mr. Fossella for the time being. Mr. Molinari, who has feuded with Mr. Fossella on and off in the past, says he will support him if he runs again. The congressman, he said, “has made mistakes, and everybody now knows about those mistakes.”

“If he chooses to run, I think he can win,” Mr. Molinari said. “It would take an all-out effort and a substantial amount of money. But there are a lot of people pledging support for him.”

The congressman has declined repeated requests to be interviewed on the topic of his re-election plans and the events of the last few weeks.

But over the past few days, Mr. Fossella has re-emerged, if gingerly. On Friday evening, he surprised many politicians by stopping by the Conservative Party banquet on Staten Island. He apparently did not tell any of the party’s leaders that he would attend. He arrived after the formal program had ended and did not speak. (James P. Molinaro, the Staten Island borough president, is a longtime official of the state Conservative Party.) Then he went to the parade on Saturday.

Mr. Fossella, the only New York City Republican in Congress, represents a district that includes Staten Island and parts of southern Brooklyn. It is the most conservative-leaning district in the city. And he has portrayed himself during his years in politics as a Republican moderate who exemplified traditional family values.

As a result, many politicians on Staten Island initially expected that he would resign shortly after the revelations of an extramarital affair and a daughter born from that relationship — or at least not run again.

To be sure, Mr. Fossella has been popular in the 13th District since he won the special election that sent him to Congress in 1997. At the time, he was a 32-year-old city councilman and a darling of Staten Island politics; a Democrat-turned-Republican who was an ardent supporter of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Woman stabbed her 43-year-old boyfriend to death in Rockaway Park

10:39 am EDT May 11, 2008 | in WNBC

Police said a woman stabbed her 43-year-old boyfriend to death at their home in Rockaway Park, and then tried to escape their apartment through the window.

Anthony Nicholas, stabbed in the torso, was taken to Peninsula Hospital in critical condition and was later pronounced dead, authorities said.

Officers said they discovered his girlfriend, Natasha Brown, 35, trying to climb out the window of their apartment.

Police said Brown stabbed Nicholas after a verbal dispute that escalated.

Brown is being held on a charge of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.

No one answered the phone at the address provided by police.

Rapper Foxy Brown pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn court on Thursday Pleads Guilty

Compiled by BEN SISARIO | May 10, 2008 | in NYTIMES

Less than a month after being released from prison, the rapper Foxy Brown pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn court on Thursday to using her BlackBerry phone to menace a woman, Reuters reported. Foxy Brown, 29, whose real name is Inga Marchand, avoided a felony assault charge, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison, by pleading guilty to menacing, a misdemeanor.

She was accused of bruising an eye and chipping a tooth of her longtime neighbor, Arlene Raymond, when she struck the woman with the phone last July. On Thursday, Justice John P. Walsh of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn sentenced the rapper to time already served and ordered her to submit an apology. “I apologize for the incident that occurred on July 31, 2007, in that I attempted to scare Arlene Raymond and place her in harm’s way,” Foxy Brown said in a handwritten note.