Chelsea shooting
Police are investigating a shooting at 2:16 a.m. Mon. Sept. 29 in front of 412 W. 17th St. in the Robert Fulton Houses that sent the victim to St. Vincent’s Hospital in stable condition with bullet wounds in the right leg and the torso. Police charged the victim, Ronald Mitchell, 27, of 908 E. 141st St., the Bronx, with criminal possession of a gun. Police said they did not know who the shooter was or the reason for the incident, which is under investigation.
Sixth Ave. assault
Two men who were with a group of friends in Ray’s Pizza on Carmine St. at Sixth Ave. at 5:20 a.m. Sat. Sept. 27 got into an argument with four strangers that turned violent and ending in knifings, police said.
The two victims sustained stab wounds to the abdomen and torso and were taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital in stable condition. The four suspects fled, but a knife was recovered at the scene. A Transit Bureau police lieutenant and a Transit Bureau patrol officer arrested Dennis Rivera, 23, of 290 Suydam St., Brooklyn, a short time later in a Sixth Ave. I.N.D. train and charged him with assault, criminal possession of a weapon and attempted murder. Sixth Precinct detectives questioned three other suspects, Eric Serrano, 28, also of 290 Suydam St.; David Torres, 19, of 296 Suydam St., Brooklyn; and Manuel Benitez, 24, of 11 St. John’s Rd., Ridgewood, Brooklyn, and charged them with assault and criminal possession of a weapon.
East Village tragedy
A woman phoned police from an East Village phone booth at 1 a.m. Mon. Sept. 22 to say that she had just fled from her apartment at 748 E. Ninth St. at Avenue A after her husband hit her over the head with a metal object while she was asleep and began to choke her for no apparent reason.
Police arrived to find her husband, Patrick Nelson, 34, on the ground with apparently self-inflicted knife wounds to both wrists and the chest after he fell or jumped from the fifth-floor fire escape. Nelson and his wife, 35, were both taken to Bellevue Hospital in serious condition, she with head injuries. He was charged with attempted murder but died shortly before 2 a.m. Wed. Sept. 24, police said.
Hit by F train
A southbound F train struck a 47-year-old man at 2:30 a.m. Sun. Sept. 28 in the Second Ave. I.N.D. station at E. Houston St., police said. The victim, not otherwise identified, was taken to Bellevue in critical condition with head injuries.
Bias assaults
Two men and a woman approached a man walking on E. 13th St. at 2:15 a.m. Sat. Sept. 27 and shouted antigay epithets at him, police said. One of the men punched the victim in the face and all three fled. The victim went to Beth Israel Hospital and police are investigating the bias assault.
Police arrested Alan Housner, 28, of 133 Second Ave., at 4 p.m. Fri. Sept. 25 on E. Eighth St. and Sixth Ave. and charged him with harassment and menacing for shouting antigay and antiblack epithets at a group of four men and throwing things at them. The four victims were not hit and sustained no injuries.
Lintel falls
A piece of a decorative window lintel that fell to the sidewalk from the three-story building at 123 Washington Pl. near Sixth Ave., probably during the night of Sat. Sept. 27, was reported the following morning to the Department of Buildings, according to Ilyse Fink, a spokesperson for the department. No one was injured in the incident. A D.O.B. inspection also found cracks in other lintels in the building. The department issued a violation and recommended that the owner erect a sidewalk shed and obtain an engineering report for the facade of the building, which is within the Greenwich Village Historic District, Fink said.
Guilty in collapse
Walter Blum, 76, and his son, Evan Blum, 47, both of Great Neck, L.I., were convicted last Friday of reckless endangerment for ordering a renovation of their former Irreplaceable Artifacts warehouse at Houston St. and Second Ave. that caused its collapse in July of 2000. They were acquitted of more serious charges of filing false documents. The Blums both face up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine at their Dec. 1 sentencing in State Supreme Court. The collapse was caused when the Blums tried to create an underground café in the building, which was loaded with heavy stone mantelpieces, pieces of building facades and garden ornaments.
Waverly Theater fire
A fire in the vacant Waverly Theater shortly before 11 p.m. on Mon. Sept. 29 brought 12 fire engines and 60 firefighters to the two-story brick building at 327 Sixth Ave., a Fire Department spokesperson said. The fire was under control at 11:36 p.m. and there were no injuries. All fires in vacant buildings are subject to investigation, but the report on the Waverly Theater fire was not available by press time on Tuesday, the department spokesperson said.
Independent Film Channel, a subsidiary of Cablevision, signed a long-term lease for the theater early this year and plans to convert it into a studio and showcase for independent filmmakers. Damage to the building was not extensive, according to an I.F.C. spokesperson.
E. Village bank job
A man walked into the Fleet Bank branch on Second Ave. at E. Fourth St. at 3:30 p.m. Mon. Sept. 29 and passed a note to a teller demanding cash, police said. The thief fled with an undisclosed amount of cash.
