Village newsstand assault
An off-duty firefighter assaulted a newsstand attendant at 123 MacDougal St. near W. Third St. after a Ground Zero Sept. 11 memorial for firefighters who died in the World Trade Center attack, police said.
The suspect, Edward Dailey, 27, a member of a Queens ladder company, was arrested in a nearby bar shortly after the 5 p.m. incident on Sunday and was charged with second-degree assault and criminal mischief.
Dailey told the attendant, Shafiquai Bhuya, 51, a Bangladeshi immigrant, that he “looked like Al Qaeda,” then ripped a Plexiglas shield from the stand and threw it at Bhuya, police said. The victim was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital where he was treated for an arm injury and released, police said.
Dailey, wearing a New York Fire Department T-shirt and uniform trousers, then went to drink with a group of firefighter friends at the Fat Black Pussy Cat around the corner on W. Third St. where police arrested him a short time later.
Recover child
A 4-year-old boy who was with his mother at a restaurant on Broadway at 172nd St. on Thursday evening Sept. 8 was stolen away by a strange woman at about 7:10 p.m., police said. A 911 call nearly three hours later brought police to 120 Baruch Dr. at Houston St. in the Baruch Houses where the boy was found with Altagracia Rodriguez, 29. The boy was returned to his mother, and Rodriguez, a resident of 120 Baruch Dr., was charged with kidnapping. Law enforcement officials said Rodriquez was apparently a complete stranger to the boy and his mother.
Nonjury trial for cop
Bryan Conroy, the police officer whose manslaughter trial ended in a deadlocked jury in March for the 2003 Chelsea warehouse shooting of Ousmane Zongo, an unarmed African immigrant, will be tried again before a judge without a jury.
State Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Straus agreed to try the case himself on Sept. 26.
The shooting occurred in the corridors of Chelsea Mini Storage on W. 27th St. at 12th Ave. where Zongo, an immigrant from Burkina Faso, worked repairing African artifacts. Conroy, a member of a plainclothes unit raiding a counterfeit CD operation, was guarding a pile of contraband alone when Zongo came upon him. A chase followed and ended in a dead-end corridor, when Conroy opened fire. Conroy claims he fired because he thought Zongo, who ran when he was ordered to stop and put his hands up, was about to pull a gun.
The trial in March ended with 10 jurors for conviction and two who held out and would not join the others’ conviction decision.
Waterfront stab
A man was stabbed on the Greenwich Village waterfront on Friday night, Sept. 9, and taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital in serious condition, according to police at the Sixth Precinct, who gave no other details, saying the case was under active investigation..
A neighbor who was in the area about 9:30 p.m. Friday said the victim had just made a food delivery to an apartment on Greenwich and W. 10th Sts., when he was confronted by three or four youths, one of whom stabbed him in the chest and stomach.
Another neighbor, Terri Howell, a member of the volunteer Christopher St. Patrol, told The Villager that she was on patrol Friday night and saw the victim being taken by ambulance to St. Vincent’s. Howell said the assailants had chased the victim and caught up with him at the Christopher St. Pier and stabbed him.
Dark Room reopens
The Dark Room, a bar and lounge at 165 Ludlow St. that was padlocked on the night of Sept. 2 in a nuisance-abatement civil action for selling alcohol to underage patrons, reopened Thurs. Sept. 8 after agreeing to conditions set by the city Law Department.
The bar agreed to make every effort to prevent the sale of alcohol to minors, including checking patrons’ identification, according to Gabriel Taussig, administrative law chief of the Law Department.
The Dark Room, between Houston and Stanton Sts., is where Mellie Nichol Carballo, 18, became acquainted with Roberto Martinez, who invited her to a party in the Lillian Wald Houses on Avenue D where Carballo and her friend, Marta Pesantez, 18, were found unconscious on Aug. 12 and died a few hours later of heroin overdose. Martinez and his friend, Alfredo Morales, a resident of the Wald Houses apartment where the women had passed out, were later charged with drug violations.
Albert Amateau
