A police officer dusted a car for fingerprints in Chelsea last week at the scene where three students were stabbed.
Fatal Soho fire
The resident of a third-floor apartment on Sullivan St. south of Houston St. died in a fire that started at about 2 a.m. Sat., Dec.15, and raged through his apartment for 40 minutes, according to Fire Department and police sources.
Richard Seidel, 65, a former musician and film archivist, was declared dead at the scene shortly after firefighters and an Emergency Medical Services team arrived, according to police. A Fire Department source said that careless smoking was a likely cause of the fire. Seidel, a resident of the building for more than 30 years, lived alone.
Nail salon stabbing
The suspect in the Dec. 8 stabbing in Kevin Nail Salon, 202 Clinton St., Min Zhu, 25, was charged with second-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault, according to a spokesperson for District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau. Zhu was arrested in his apartment at 61 Delancey St. soon after the stabbing. His victim, identified only as an Asian man, 41, was treated at St. Vincent’s Hospital and released last week. (Based on incorrect information from a police source, a photo caption in last week’s Villager stated that the victim was a woman.)
East River floater
The body of an unidentified woman was pulled from the East River at 2:30 p.m. Mon., Dec. 17. The Medical Examiner is investigating the cause of death.
Double Sin
A fight between two patrons of Sin Sin/Leopard Lounge, 85 Second Ave. at E. Fifth St., during the early hours of Sat., Dec. 15, continued on the sidewalk at 4:30 a.m. after closing time where the two combatants hit each other about the head with bottles, police said. Arkadiusz Macio, 22, a visitor from California, and Gregory Fryc, 28, of Ridgewood, Queens, were treated at Bellevue Hospital and both were charged with second-degree assault.
Shoplift robbery
Police arrested two women and a man on Friday afternoon Dec. 14 in the V.I.M. clothing store at 686 Broadway at Great Jones St. after the trio fought with security guards who were trying to stop them from walking out without paying for clothing they had stuffed into a “booster bag” lined with foil to avoid detection by scanner. Charged with second-degree robbery, possession of stolen property and possession of burglary tools — the bag — were Tyvone Dawkins, 27, and his wife, Shernell Dawkins, 27, of Brooklyn, and Danielle Jones, 25, also of Brooklyn.
Bank robber
A man walked into the Chase Bank branch at 525 Broadway at Spring St. at 12:10 p.m. Tues., Dec. 11, and passed a note written on a deposit slip that said, “LARGE DENOMINATIONS ONLY” and told the teller, “Hurry up, or I’ll shoot everyone in the place.” The teller passed him a stack of $1 bills totaling $106 and the thief, described only as a black man, 5 feet 8 inches tall and 140 pounds, fled west on Spring St.
Soho burglary
A couple left their basement apartment at 171 Sixth Ave. at Vandam St. at 8 a.m. Thurs., Dec. 13, and returned at 6 p.m. to discover that a window bar had been bent in the grate in front of a window they had left open and a laptop computer, an iPod and about $100 in coins had been stolen, police said.
Arrest flasher
Police arrested Ishmael Alvarado, 40, at a unisex dressing area at American Apparel, 121 Spring St., at about 6:20 p.m. Sun., Dec. 2, and charged him with public lewdness for pulling his pants down and exposing his genitals to store customers. Although Alvarado closely resembles a police sketch of a man who sexually molested a 12-year-old girl in the vicinity of Walker and Church Sts. in Tribeca on Nov. 13, the girl did not identify him at a lineup and he was not charged in the earlier incident, according to Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna of the First Precinct.
Pushed to tracks
Police arrested Tenesha Thompson, 24, of the Bronx, on Monday evening Dec. 10 on the Q train platform of the Union Square subway station and charged her with pushing a woman passenger to the tracks shortly before a train pulled into the station. According to the New York Post, a man and a woman who jumped to the tracks pulled the victim, a Brooklyn mother of a 13-year-old girl, to safety. The woman was shaken but uninjured. Thompson faces charges of third-degree assault and reckless endangerment.
Bank robbery arrest
Two police officers on a meal break spotted Anthony Bishop, 36, at 1:35 p.m. Thurs., Dec. 13, walking away from the Sovereign Bank branch at 251 Park Ave. S. at E. 21st St. soon after a dye pack of cash from the bank that he was carrying exploded. They arrested the suspect and recovered $3,480 of the stolen money.
Busts in THOR score
Police arrested Ashley Thomas, 30 on Dec. 2 and Charles Alarcon, 20, on Dec. 11 in connection with the Nov. 26 theft of about $50,000 from a safe at The Hotel on Rivington near Ludlow St. While Thomas distracted the manager, Alarcon entered through an employees’ entrance, stole keys from a safe behind the reception desk and opened a safe where the cash was kept, according to the charges. The defendants, both of Queens, are free on bail pending court dates in March.
Village mugging arrest
Police arrested Eric Diaz, 24 on Sun., Dec. 9, and charged him with robbery, grand larceny and criminal mischief in connection with the 4 p.m. mugging of a woman at the corner of Ninth St. and Fifth Ave. where a scaffolding covers the sidewalk. The suspect is charged with pushing the victim from behind into a metal pole of the scaffold where she struck her head and fell to the sidewalk, police said. Diaz grabbed her handbag while she was on the ground and fled. As he was fleeing, he ran into and broke the side mirror of a car (resulting in the criminal mischief charge). Two passersby gave chase and held the suspect until police came.
Auto thefts
A car parked at the curb near the northeast corner of W. 11th St. and Waverly Pl. at 11 a.m. Fri., Dec. 7, was reported stolen at 4:15 p.m. A man who parked his rented car on University Pl. at E. 13th St. at 9:30 p.m. Sat., Dec. 8, returned at 8 a.m. the following day and found it had been stolen. A car parked at the curb at the northeast corner of Christopher and Grove Sts. at 4:10 p.m. Fri., Dec. 7, was reported missing two and a half hours later.
Cell phone theft
A man who had his cell phone stolen on Mon., Dec. 10, received a call at home from a man who said he would return it for $50 the following day at 9 p.m. at Christopher and Hudson Sts. A Sixth Precinct detective made the appointment and arrested David McQueen, 27, and charged him with grand larceny.
Hospital visit
A patient at St. Vincent’s Hospital told police at 9:20 p.m. Wed., Dec. 12, that she had a visitor three hours earlier who distracted her and took her bag when she thought the patient wasn’t looking. The thief left abruptly, leaving a cell phone, according to the police report.
Bags gone
A woman shopping at Forever 21, 40 E. 14th St., at 6:30 p.m. Wed., Dec. 12, put her bag down in front of a mirror while trying on clothes and discovered it was missing when she went to pick it up. She later discovered that more than $1,000 in unauthorized charges were made on her credit cards and bank cards.
A patron of East West Yoga, 78 Fifth Ave., told police that her wallet was taken from her bag while she was in class between 6:20 p.m. and 7:40 p.m. Mon., Dec. 10. A thief grabbed a woman’s handbag and fled while she was chatting with friends on the northeast corner of Broadway at E. 14th St. at Union Square at 6:30 p.m. Tues., Dec. 11.
Seek stabbing suspects
Police are seeking suspects involved in the stabbing of three students of High School for the Humanities on W. 17th St. near Eighth Ave. on Wed., Dec. 12. The victims, ranging in ages from 15 to 17, are not cooperating with police investigating the incident. The three youths, Harlem residents, were treated at St. Vincent’s Hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.
The three were attacked by a small group of teens about 1 p.m. between Seventh and Eighth Aves., and other students piled onto what became a melee that ended up on Eighth Ave.
Albert Amateau
