E. 9th St. shooting
Reports of gunfire at 3:58 a.m. Fri., June 18, brought police to the sidewalk in front of 55 E. Ninth St. between University Place and Broadway where they found a man, 18, with a gunshot wound in his left thigh. The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. Detectives from the Sixth Precinct later arrested three suspects, Chad Tucker, 20, Craig Bracero, 25, and Ornell Caesar, 18. Charges against the suspects are pending.
The incident started in an argument over a girl, police said. Caesar was in possession of gun when he was arrested, and Bracero, of the Bronx, had been arrested previously for second-degree robbery, law enforcement officials said. The victim was also arrested previously on a weapons charge.
Breaks guitar
A homeless man was attacked on the sidewalk in front of 147 Bleecker St. between Thompson St. and LaGuardia Place at 3:45 a.m. Wed., June 16, police said. The assailant, described as 6 feet tall, weighing 200 pounds and wearing his hair in a ponytail, hit the victim in the right hand with a piece of wood and broke the victim’s guitar, police said.
Fight in park
An argument between two Parks Department employees, a man and a woman working in the playground in the northeast corner of Washington Square Park, turned nasty around 8 a.m. Thurs., June 17, when the man hit his 20-year-old co-worker in the face with a long-handled brush, police said. The suspect, Luis Laracuente, 36, of Manhattan, was charged with first- and second-degree assault.
Bleecker burglary
An employee of Grom, the restaurant at 233 Bleecker St. near Carmine St., arrived at 9 a.m. Tues., June 15, to open the place when he discovered the front door was unlocked, police said. The safe in the back room was also open and $14,750 in cash was gone, police said. The thief apparently opened the safe with the key, which was kept in a drawer nearby, police said. The restaurant alarm apparently had not been turned on when the place closed at 1 a.m. that morning, police said.
L.E.S. random attack
Three suspects punched and kicked a visitor from Boston in the lobby of a commercial building on East Broadway and Pike St. at 10:45 p.m. Mon., June 14, police said. After the unprovoked assault, the trio ran out the front door.
Lounge shakedown
Peter Dupre, co-owner of Rue B, the lounge at 188 Avenue B near E. 11th St., told a Brooklyn federal jury on Mon., June 21, that Christopher Curanovic, an accused extortionist, tried to stab a screwdriver into his hand in 2007. Dupre, a former actor, said Curanovic had also threatened his partner with a kitchen knife and was taking $500 a week from the lounge for “protection.”
The testimony came in the Brooklyn racketeering trial of John Franzese, 93, an alleged Colombo crime family member known as Sonny. Franzese became a regular at Rue B in 2007 after he was introduced to Dupre by Vinny Vella, a Nolita resident and actor who had a small part in “The Sopranos,” according to a Daily News article.
Albert Amateau
