Tag: THE BRONX
Man robbed by woman after refusing to pay for sex
A man was allegedly robbed at knifepoint in the Bronx by a woman he met on a dating app after he refused to pay for sex, police and sources said Tuesday.
The 60-year-old man had been messaging with the woman on an app called Skout, and the pair met around 3 a.m. Monday at an apartment on Holland Avenue near Pelham Parkway South, police and law enforcement sources said.
She allegedly performed sexual services on him, and demanded to be paid, police said. But the man refused — later telling cops he’d never agreed to pay — and she allegedly took out a knife and stole $100 from him, along with a Bluetooth device and three cellphones, the sources added.
She then allegedly forced the victim to withdraw money from an ATM inside a nearby deli but was scared off when the man told a store clerk to call 911.
The man was uninjured. His date is still in the wind.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/05/21/man-robbed-by-woman-after-refusing-to-pay-for-sex-sources/
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Mom turns herself in after slashing throats of her two children
A Bronx mother slashed her two young children’s throats before turning up at a police precinct covered in blood to confess to the heinous crime, cops said Monday.
A passerby saw Shanice Martin, 24, allegedly stab her 2-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son in the neck and body on the corner of Washington Avenue and Brook Avenue at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, police reported.
Martin ran off as witnesses called the cops, officials said.
Shortly after the 911 call, Martin, covered in blood, walked into the 42nd Precinct and confessed to her crimes, police added.
She now faces 12 counts of assault, two counts of child abandonment, two counts of child endangerment and two counts of possessing a weapon, police said.
A razor blade was recovered, but it was not immediately clear whether it was the weapon she used to stab her children, officials said.
Martin is undergoing psychiatric evaluation and observation at Lincoln Hospital.
The children were treated at New York Presbyterian Hospital, but their conditions were not immediately clear, according to authorities.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/04/29/mom-turns-herself-in-after-slashing-throats-of-two-children-cops/
Man found dead hanging from a tree inside Bronx playground
A 37-year-old man was found dead and hanging from a tree in a Bronx playground Friday morning, police said.
A local resident found the fully clothed man unconscious and unresponsive hanging from a rope in the French Charley’s Playground around 7:35 a.m. near the corner of East 204th Street and Webster Avenue, cops said. The resident called 911.
There were no other signs of trauma on the man’s body, and an emergency responder pronounced him dead at the scene, authorities said.
He has been identified, but police are waiting to release his name until family is notified.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/04/26/man-found-dead-hanging-from-a-tree-inside-bronx-playground/
Man allegedly killed girlfriend for staying out overnight
The Bronx man who walked into a local police precinct station house and confessed to killing his girlfriend was angry because she had stayed out overnight, police sources told The Post Thursday.
Angel Esteban Felix Rodriguez, 24, strolled into the 48th Precinct station house with an interpreter around 6 p.m. Wednesday and admitted to officers that he killed Indira Ramirez-Rivera, 21, two days prior, police and sources said.
Rodriguez gave his apartment keys to cops, who went to the couple’s Nelson Avenue basement apartment and found her lifeless body in a bedroom, sources said.
Rivera was discovered strangled to death face-up on a bed, the sources said.
Rodriquez was later charged with murder and manslaughter for the slaying. Police have not released a motive.
Shocked neighbors told The Post on Thursday the couple had a hot-and-cold relationship, and that Rivera had moved out of the apartment in the past before moving back in.
“They seemed lovable but then they argued and it was heated,” neighbor Smily Rodriguez, who has no relation to the suspect, told the Post.
Rodriguez, 35, was home when police flooded the scene Wednesday night, and said she knew things were bad when she saw police head downstairs with their rubber gloves on.
“I heard one EMT say: ‘It looked like the devil was in there,’” she said.
Neighbors said Rivera had just returned from the Dominican Republic, where she had plastic surgery.
“She wasn’t able to move around that well,” said 18-year-old Andy Ramirez.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/04/11/man-allegedly-killed-girlfriend-for-staying-out-overnight/
9-year-old hangs herself after mom told her not to play on cellphone
A 9-year-old girl hanged herself in her Bronx home — after her mother told her it was too early in the morning to be on her cellphone, sources and neighbors said Sunday.
Heaven Vega was found dead by her horrified mom, Jennifer, in her bedroom at the family’s apartment in the Bronx River Houses shortly before noon Saturday, authorities said.
The child had tied a belt around her neck and hanged herself from her bed, police said.
Earlier in the morning, the mother and daughter had fought over the girl’s cellphone use, police sources and neighbors said.
“Nowadays, all kids have cellphones in their hands, and all they do is watch YouTube,” said a neighbor who didn’t want to be named. “Apparently the girl woke up, and she wanted to get the phone to go on YouTube. But the mother told her, no, it was too early in the morning.”
Next-door neighbor Zoraida Irizarry said the child’s grief-stricken mother is now blaming herself for the tragedy.
“I can’t imagine what the mother is going through right now. A friend of mine spoke to Jennifer, and Jennifer said that she thought that it was her fault,’’ she said.
The distraught mom called 911 after finding her daughter in the room, a source said. One of Heaven’s brothers performed CPR until paramedics arrived, the source said.
“I can hear into their apartment through my wall,” said Irizarry, who lives next door to the family’s third-floor apartment.
“Yesterday morning, I heard the older daughter calling for her sister at a regular tone, and then all of a sudden her voice got really loud, and she started screaming.”
The little girl was rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital but could not be saved. It’s unclear whether she left behind a note.
Neighbors in the building said Heaven was the youngest of four siblings, and recalled that all of the kids would sit in the hallway glued to their phones.
“I don’t get it. She always had a smile on her face. I only ever saw her happy,” Irizarry, 59, said of Heaven. “I would come home and she would be sitting in the hallway doing her homework, I guess because it was quieter out there.”
She said the entire community is in shock over the girl’s death.
“I don’t know how her mother can function after this,” she added.
The grieving mom could not be reached for comment.
Additional reporting by Stephanie Pagones
via: https://nypost.com/2019/02/17/9-year-old-hanged-herself-after-argument-with-mother-cops/
Middle-aged teacher called 11-year-old student her ‘boyfriend’: records
In a shocking case of twisted misconduct, a 41-year-old Bronx public-school teacher doted romantically on a fifth-grader — calling the 11-year-old her “boyfriend,” records show.
“As long as without sex, I think its(sic) legal,” teacher Yi Chen Cheng told a friend on Facebook, investigators found.
A Department of Education teacher for 16 years, Cheng taught music at PS 1 Courtlandt, a pre-K to 5th grade school in Mott Haven.
According to investigative reports and disciplinary records, Cheng sent the fifth-grader messages adorned with heart emojis, told him often, “I love you,” and expressed jealousy of his girlfriends.
With a phone she bought for him, they exchanged 563 texts and engaged in video chats at odd hours, chatting about kid stuff like basketball, going to the mall, and dating.
Cheng is one of two teachers recently fired after disturbing Facebook messages and texts came to light, reports by the city’s Special Commissioner of Investigation reveal.
In the other case, Dennis Colon, 46, a teacher at Mott Haven Village Preparatory HS in the Bronx, texted a student while driving in June 2017: “I f–king WISH you were my girlllllllllll,” the SCI reports.
Colon quickly texted other sheepish remarks, including, “Ugh should I have shut the f- -k up???” Moments later he texted: “Just got into an accident,” and sent a photo of his wrecked mini-van. “Waiting for a f–king Uber right now.”
The girl turned in screenshots. Records over three months showed 680 texts from Colon to her phone, and 350 from her to him. Confronted with his vulgar words, Colon claimed he was “drunk” at the time, quickly realized “it was a mistake,” and apologized. The DOE fired him.
In Cheng’s case, the boy told probers that his teacher never engaged in sexual behavior with him. The NYPD and Bronx District Attorney’s Office did not file criminal charges.
But a disciplinary hearing officer, Timothy Taylor, terminated Cheng, calling her conduct “particularly shocking.”
Records show her estranged husband, who shared a Facebook password, was stunned to discover a trove of notes between Cheng and the pre-teen boy.
“Don’t use me as a bargaining chip for your gf [girlfriend],” Cheng allegedly wrote in June 2017. “This is the second time that you are telling everyone what I told you. Do you think it’s a joke. Or you think I am a joke? You hurt me again. And this is what you should tell everyone from now, including your gf: I don’t love you, I don’t. Goodnight.”
The student replied, “Woow first I ain’t tell anybody about u. …”
Cheng then added, “I feel you are using me to get her jealous. And that hurts because you care about her feelings more than my feeling. And don’t you know how much I love you through everything?”
Cheng, who has a 5-year-old son, sent a photo of the student to a Facebook friend, calling him her “boyfriend,” reports state.
She confided she “fell for someone that [she] shouldn’t fall for. [M]aybe because we are meant to be … we know what each other wants without even saying a word … we don’t even fight. … I feel connected to him.”
Cheng, who did not testify or return a message from The Post, now works for the Piano School of NYC in Manhattan. She gives piano lessons in the homes of students under age 10 with a parent present, a spokeswoman said.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/10/20/middle-aged-teacher-called-11-year-old-student-her-boyfriend-records/
Ex-con allegedly disemboweled wife, called victim’s baby daddy to gloat
A Bronx ex-con disemboweled his wife Monday, then calmly called his parole officer to report the murder — and his dead victim’s baby daddy to gloat, sources told The Post.
“Go get your daughter — I just killed her mother,’’ 58-year-old Virgil Solis allegedly told his wife’s former lover.
“And [Solis] kept calling’’ the distraught man, telling him, “I’m coming to the funeral’’ — even as the man was at the police precinct talking to cops, said the victim’s pal, Sasha, 54, to The Post.
In a separate phone call to his parole officer, Solis also admitted, “I killed my wife. Come get her,” a law enforcement source added.
The ex-con was still being monitored by the state Department of Corrections after spending 18 years in custody for a brutal 1998 assault when he stabbed his wife, Valerie, 53, inside her Tremont apartment, sources said.
Another person in the building apparently heard Solis attacking his wife and called 911 around 10:19 a.m., according to police.
Responding NYPD officers discovered Valerie inside the seventh-floor apartment on Southern Boulevard near East 180th Street with a severe stab wound to her stomach and pronounced her dead at the scene. She had been disemboweled, a law enforcement source said.
Meanwhile, her killer was nowhere to be found.
He was eventually nabbed by cops Monday evening in downtown Manhattan, sources said.
According to records from state Corrections and Community Supervision, Virgil Solis had previously been arrested numerous times for assaults.
He served at least 18 years after cops caught him roughing up a woman who refused to have sex with him, sources said. He hit and choked the woman — leading cops to arrest him for rape, assault and aggravated sex abuse — although he was only convicted of assault in the first degree, sources said.
At one point during his incarceration, he landed in a mental facility, sources said.
Additional reporting by Chris Perez
via: https://nypost.com/2018/09/10/ex-con-allegedly-disemboweled-wife-called-victims-baby-daddy-to-gloat/
Junkies are filling Bronx parks with over 5,000 used needles a week
Junkies have been dumping some 5,000 used needles a week in parks across the Bronx — prompting desperate city officials to install dozens of syringe-disposal kiosks in hopes of cleaning up the dangerous mess.
There has been a dramatic gain in the number of syringes found in parks in the Bronx in recent years because of the ongoing opioid epidemic, city Health Department officials say.
The 60 kiosks, which will be locked trash boxes placed in the hardest-hit Bronx parks, are part of a $60 million HealingNYC program to combat the drug plague, announced Monday.
The plan will also include outreach from needle-exchange programs to users who shoot up in parks.
“Everyone deserves parks that are safe and clean,” said Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver. “Our goal is to protect parkgoers and to offer a helping hand to those struggling with addiction.”
He added that the program will be modeled after similar initiatives in Seattle and Vancouver, Canada.
Among the 16 impacted parks is Saint Mary’s in Mott Haven — the largest park in the South Bronx — as well as Tremont Park and Crotona Park.
City Health Department officials couldn’t say how many needles a typical addict runs through per day, since it varies by level of addiction, as well as the type and amount of drug injected.
Drug users are eager to dispose used needles quickly because they’re worried about getting caught by police, according to Mark Townsend of the Corner Project in Washington Heights.
The nonprofit group piloted the city’s first-ever syringe kiosk in May 2016, installing a daisy-shaped drop box at Haven Park Underpass in upper Manhattan.
The first city-run kiosks — which will be emptied by trained park workers or needle-exchange-program staffers — can hold from 250 to 2,000 syringes each, according to health officials.
The program will expand to other boroughs if it proves successful, but officials couldn’t immediately say when the first of the kiosks will be installed.
“Collaborating with NYC Parks is part of our comprehensive plan to address the opioid epidemic and help keep all New Yorkers safe, including people who use drugs,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett.
As part of the city’s wider efforts to combat opioid use and stem an increase in overdoses, Mayor Bill de Blasio recently approved the opening of four supervised injection facilities where drug users can shoot up under medical supervision.
Community hearings concerning the sites — two in Manhattan, one in the Bronx and one in Brooklyn — have been scheduled while the city awaits necessary approvals in coming months.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/05/21/junkies-are-filling-bronx-parks-with-over-5000-used-needles-a-week/
Cop found not guilty in fatal shooting of mentally ill woman
The NYPD sergeant on trial for the fatal shooting of a bat-wielding Bronx woman has been found not guilty in the woman’s death, a judge ruled Thursday morning.
Bronx Supreme Court Justice Robert Neary said he found Sgt. Hugh Barry not guilty of all charges — including murder — in the Oct. 2016 shooting of 66-year-old Deborah Danner.
“Clearly this case involved a terrible tragedy and emotions on both sites are elevated,” Neary said, before declaring that Barry was found not guilty of second-degree murder, first and second degree manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide.
“In this case the prosecution has an additional burden beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant is not justified,” she continued. “In both regards the prosecution’s evidence has failed to meet the burden of proof.”
Barry looked stoic and emotionless as the verdict was read. Jennifer Danner, Deborah’s sister, raised her eyebrows slightly. At one point, she appeared tearful as she rested her head on another woman’s shoulder.
Defense lawyer Andrew Quinn said that Barry is “overwhelmed.”
“He has been through a difficult time,” Quinn said. “We have always felt confident we would win, but you never know until you see the evidence.”
“I thought he was very honest,” he added. “I thought he explained in specific detail exactly what happened inside that room and described it as it was. It could’ve ended very, very differently. And I think that’s why he was able to convey this to the judge.”
Barry, who was escorted by police the whole time, was nowhere to be found after the verdict was read.
He was on his way to church “to catch a Mass,” Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins said.
The Sergeants Benevolent Association received the news with “much joy and relief,” according to a statement posted on Twitter.
“Sgt. Barry committed no crime and was justified in his actions,” the statement said. “I commend Judge Neary for recognizing that and acquitting Sgt. Barry of these horrendous charges.”
But Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark had a more somber reaction.
“The judge has issued his verdict in this case,” she said in a statement. “We are disappointed but we accept his decision. However, I believe the death of Deborah Danner illustrates the larger issue of how we need changes in the way we address people with mental health issues.”
“There must be serious reforms to improve access to treatment so the situation does not rise to a crisis,” she added. “Mental health professionals should be part of the response to emotionally disturbed persons. I hope that measures will be taken to prevent another tragedy such as this.”
Barry, who opted for a non-jury trial, testified during the two-week proceeding that he fired two bullets into the schizophrenic woman–using his service weapon, not a taser–because he feared for his life.
“I just see the bat swinging, and that’s when I fired,’’ the 32-year-old said from the stand Tuesday. “I’m looking at this bat that can crack me in the head and kill me.”
Quinn argued Wednesday that Barry was imminently threatened when Danner took a step in his direction holding the bat.
“If she hadn’t taken that step, we wouldn’t be having a trial. We wouldn’t be having a funeral,” the defense attorney said.
But prosecutors insisted during the proceedings that Barry ignored his training when he walked into the mentally ill woman’s bedroom — causing the already angry and agitated Danner to have become even more aggravated.
“[Barry] failed to fulfilled his duties as a patrol supervisor,” Assistant DA Wanda Perez-Maldonado argued during her closings. “He failed to make use of the resources available to him.”
“He created to the situation….that led to her death,” Maldonado added.
The deadly incident began when the 31-year-old sergeant and others arrived at Danner’s apartment after a neighbor reported a screaming resident.
Barry peered into the woman’s bedroom, where he spotted her sitting “on her bed furiously snapping a pair of green-handled metal scissors,” according to court papers.
He claims he asked her to put the scissors down, but she brandished them in his direction, and spat, “I’m not f–king coming out!”
She eventually dropped the scissors, but then pulled a baseball bat from between her bed sheets and lunged at Barry–who was also armed with a taser, the papers say.
He fired two shots from his service weapon, hitting her in the torso, and she later died at a nearby hospital.
The shooting prompted street protests and was immediately criticized by police commissioner James O’Neill, who told reporters, “We failed,” and Mayor de Blasio, who called Danner’s death “tragic and unacceptable.”
Mullins sharply criticized both officials — and the ADA — on Thursday, saying that they “play politics.”
“Sgt. Barry should be immediately reinstated,” he declared. “He was wronged all along and it’s up now to the commissioner to make it right. He owes him an apology, the mayor owes him an apology and so does the district attorney.”
Barry’s case marks the first time an on-duty officer has faced murder charges since the notorious police shooting of Amadou Diallo in 1999.
Danner’s family has filed a federal lawsuit against the city.
A nine-year veteran of the 43rd Precinct, Barry could have faced up to life in prison if he was convicted on the murder charge.
“There is no victory here today,” Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick J. Lynch said in a statement, “only relief that justice has been served and a good man who was doing a difficult and dangerous job has been exonerated.”
via: https://nypost.com/2018/02/15/cop-found-not-guilty-in-fatal-shooting-of-mentally-ill-woman/
FedEx worker helps rescue child left alone in rat-infested hellhole
A 5-year-old boy — left home alone inside a rat-infested Bronx apartment — was rescued Friday after he was discovered by a FedEx deliveryman, law enforcement sources said.
The boy’s parents, Wilfred Lewis, 59, and Charlotte Lewis, 48, were arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a child after cops discovered the kid in the apartment filled with feces, trash, bedbugs and maggots, sources said.
The deliveryman needed a signature on a package and knocked on the family’s door, which the little boy answered, sources said.
The FedEx man asked where his parents were and the boy responded, “They’re not home,” before the deliveryman flagged down nearby cops for help, sources said.
The mom, a nurse at Montefiore Medical Center, was arrested at work, authorities said.
The father, who claimed his 5-year-old son was “self-sufficient,” surrendered at the 50th Precinct station house, sources said.
The boy’s siblings — two girls, 12 and 13, and a 15-year-old deaf boy — were in school at the time.
City child-welfare agents took the kids to Montefiore for evaluation.
The apartment reeked of human feces and a look inside the apartment — through the drilled-out door knob — showed trash strewn throughout the unit.
The family has had previous contacts with the Administration for Children’s Services, sources said.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/01/27/fedex-worker-helps-rescue-child-left-alone-in-rat-infested-hellhole/