Fatal subway fall
Daniel Mendez, 20, of Jersey City, fell to his death from the platform of the Christopher St. subway station and was hit by a northbound No. 1 train at 7:12 a.m. on Sat. Dec. 27, police said. The victim, who had been drinking, probably fell by accident, police said.
Village club brawl
One man was shot, a second was stabbed and a third was hit over the heat with a bottle during a fight that broke out inside Negril Village Lounge and then spilled out onto W. Third St. between Thompson St. and LaGuardia Pl. during the early hours of Sat. Dec. 27, police said. The man shot was hit in the hip and shoulder and was taken by friends to DeKalb Hospital in Brooklyn. The others, one stabbed in the head, chest and back, and the other, stabbed in the head, were taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital, police said. All were in serious condition.
The fight was apparently caused by an insult to a woman but police would not say whether the fight was among the three wounded men or between them and others.
Hudson apartment death
A man hired to clean apartment 5C at 641 Hudson St. near Horatio St. called police at about 5:45 p.m. Sat. Dec. 27 after he found the partly decomposed remains of a man, police said. A preliminary report at the scene by a medical examiner found no evidence of trauma. Police declined to reveal the name of the man, pending a final determination by the Medical Examiner’s office of the time and cause of death.
Statue flight
A small private plane, whose pilot claims he got lost, was escorted back to its home airport on Long Island by an armed N.Y.P.D. helicopter on Sunday afternoon after the plane circled the Statue of Liberty, heightening fears of terrorist activity.
Police believed the pilot’s story and said there were no criminal charges. But the Federal Aviation Administration said the incident is under investigation by the agency and the Department of Homeland Security.
The pilot, identified by the New York Post as Richard Langone, 47, of Atlantic Beach, left Republic Airport around noon on Dec. 28 in a single-engine plane with his son and his father as passengers, visited an airport near Poughkeepsie and then got lost on his way home.
Small aircraft had been barred from flying over the East and Hudson Rivers and around the Statue of Liberty for a time after the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001, but the restrictions have been lifted. Nevertheless, a police helicopter with a machine-gunner aboard was dispatched because Langone had violated LaGuardia airspace and did not respond immediately to radio messages, police said.
West Village fire
A fire that broke out in the basement at 76 Horatio St. at 8:49 a.m. Sun. Dec. 28 spread to the attic of the four-story building via the stairway, a Fire Department spokesperson said. Firefighters temporarily evacuated the brick building and the blaze was under control by 9:39 a.m., according to a department spokesperson. There were no reported injuries. Bill Cornwell, a resident of 69 Horatio St., witnessed the incident. “Most of the damage was done by the firemen,” he said. “To fight the fire, they had to open up the roof and pour water down.”
