Brooklyn

NEW YORK – A man crossing an intersection in Brooklyn early Thursday was struck by a driver who ran a red light, killing the man.

Police said they are still looking for the driver who struck Felix Mendez, a 49-year-old Brooklyn man who was trying to cross the crosswalk around 3 a.m. at the intersection of Bedford avenues and Lafayette in Bed-Stuy.

Surveillance video capturing the fatal incident is difficult to watch (the video above stops before the moment of impact). It shows Mendez starting to cross the street when he has his cross signal, and then a light-colored SUV enters the scene at a high rate of speed.

The driver darts into the intersection while the light is still red and sends the man flying. According to the video, the man is lying on the hood of the car on the other side of the intersection before being thrown to the ground. The driver continues down the street.

Police said Mendez suffered trauma to the head and body. Doctors rushed to the scene and took him to a nearby hospital, but he did not survive his injuries.

“It’s shocking to hear something like that,” said Paul Johnson.

Bed-Stuy residents, like Johnson, who lives just steps away, woke up to the news.

“Hopefully the cameras catch them, hopefully the cameras have a license plate or something so that this person can be held accountable for what he did,” Johnson said.

As of Friday afternoon, police had not announced an arrest or released details about a possible description of the suspect.

The department’s online database shows that pedestrian deaths have increased this year. Deaths from the beginning of the year to date (October 6) amount to 84, a much higher figure than last year, which was 70.

NEW YORK – An MTA driver was attacked and stabbed by a passenger at a Brooklyn subway station on Tuesday, according to the New York City Police Department.

The incident happened shortly before 11 a.m. at the Utica Avenue subway station, near the intersection of Utica Avenue and Fulton Street in the Bed-Stuy section.

According to authorities, the driver approached a passenger when it was time to get off the train as they had reached the last stop. The initial interaction was followed by a verbal argument which ended with the passenger stabbing the driver in the torso and leg.

The worker was transported to Kings County Hospital in stable condition, according to the FDNY.

Police later confirmed the arrest of a 27-year-old suspect, who was detained in Transit District 32.

NEW YORK – As New York City Mayor Eric Adams prepared to hold a lengthy press conference at City Hall, a potential witness in one of the investigations sprawling around the administration wraps up his own press conference just steps away, saying that he had been the victim of a corrupt “harassment.”

Brooklyn juice bar owner and late night Shamel Kelly held his own press conference Tuesday saying he was the victim of a corrupt scheme involving an aide to the mayor and the police department.

Along with his lawyers, Kelly said he opposed aggressive policing of noise complaints. Seeking help dealing with them all, Kelly said City Hall employee Ray Martin called the owner of a security business overnight, who told him he could make him the complaints go for price.

Kelly said he later learned that the security consulting firm was run by James Caban, the twin brother of former NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban, who resigned in September.

“I felt like I was blackmailed,” Kelly told reporters.

His lawyers said it was extortion.

“He is cooperating in this federal investigation to find out how extensive, how long and how many people are involved,” said attorney Bernarda Villalona.

Kelly provided a video showing dozens of officers right outside the door of his Coney Island business for one of the alleged noise complaints, which Kelly’s lawyers said has been turned over to federal prosecutors. . There had been dozens of noise complaints to 311 about loud music, but the state liquor authority said they had no history of crime.

Kelly also showed NBC New York text messages with Martin and the police commissioner’s brother. He said James Caban asked for $2,500 to start, with possible ongoing payments from now on. Kelly claims that after he refused to pay, compliance issues escalated and he closed business in February.

“I started losing a lot of funding because of too much harassment. No one really wanted to come to my center like that,” said Kelly.

“If there’s a noise complaint, you do your job properly. What you don’t do is go in, investigate, go through cabinets, harass,” said attorney Harry Daniels.

Federal investigators and the city’s Bureau of Investigation have been looking into the allegations.

Eddie and James Caban’s phones were confiscated by federal agents. A lawyer for James Caban, Sean Hecker, said that his client “unequivocally denies any wrongdoing” and that his engagement was completely legal, saying that when the” investigation completed, it will be clear that these allegations are baseless and have no merit. .” “. Eddie Caban has also denied any wrongdoing.

Martin was fired for false accusations after NBC New York first raised Kelly’s allegations in September. He did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The New York Police Department declined to comment, citing ongoing federal criminal investigations into City Hall and the police department.

Adams said he was not aware of the allegations, which were first reported a few weeks ago, but that “nobody should treat a business owner unfairly in any way.”

NEW YORK – Two inmates were stabbed to death. Another was speared in the spine with a moving ice pick. A corrections officer has been accused of shooting at a car during a high-speed chase.

The criminal indictments unsealed Monday shed new light on the violence and disorder that has plagued the Brooklyn federal prison where Sean “Diddy” Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried are being held.

In all, federal prosecutors charged nine inmates in connection with a series of attacks that occurred between April and August at the Metropolitan Detention Center, the only federal prison in New York City. The charges come amid an effort by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons to fix problems in the prison and hold perpetrators accountable.

Andrew Simpson and Devone Thomas were charged with murder at a federal detention center for allegedly stabbing inmate Uriel Whyte to death on June 7. Jamaul Aziz, James Bazemore and Alberto Santiago were charged with premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit murder inside a federal detention center for the July 17 killing of inmate Edwin Cordero. An improvised weapon was used in both attacks, prosecutors said.

Messages seeking comment were left with attorneys who represented Thomas, Aziz, Bazemore and Santiago in their previous cases. Simpson’s attorney declined to comment.

Four other inmates were charged with non-lethal assaults. One was charged with assaulting a federal officer for allegedly punching a corrections officer in the face in August after the officer offered him breakfast. Two more were charged in the ice-picking attack a few days later.

“Violence is unacceptable in our federal prisons,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. He said the charges should serve as “a warning to those who engage in criminal behavior behind bars, and to anyone else who facilitates these crimes: their behavior will be exposed and they will be held accountable.” “

Also Monday, a corrections officer assigned to patrol the prison’s perimeter was charged with a civil rights violation for shooting at a BMW sedan with his weapon issued by the Bureau of Prisons in September 2023. after driving the vehicle through the streets of Brooklyn in a government-owned Dodge Caravan. The BMW had three bullet holes on the outside in the back and one person inside was injured, Peace said.

The officer, Leon Wilson, 49, drove more than twice the speed limit, ran red lights, swerved and narrowly missed other vehicles, and returned to his post without telling anyone what happened, prosecutors said. Wilson, who has been an employee of the prison since 2000, met the BMW in the employee parking lot and drove to a location near the Brooklyn Bridge, about five miles away, prosecutors said.

Wilson is at least the seventh MDC Brooklyn employee to be charged with a crime in the past five years. Others were accused of accepting bribes or giving away paraphernalia such as drugs, cigarettes and cellphones, according to an Associated Press review of gang-related arrests.

A message was left with Wilson’s attorney seeking comment.

The Bureau of Prisons says it is working to fix problems at the Brooklyn jail, where inmates, guards and judges have regularly complained about “dangerous and barbaric conditions,” giving into rampant violence. Combs’ attorneys filed a motion Monday to free him from the troubled prison while he awaits trial on sex-trafficking charges.

A group of top Bureau of Prisons officials known as the Emergency Task Force is focused on getting the Brooklyn jail back to adequate staffing levels and ensuring it is in good condition. They have visited the facilities again and meet weekly to deal with problems in the prison.

So far, the group says, it has increased staff by about 20%, bringing the total number of employees to 469 in mid-September and leaving about 157 position left vacant. The group says they have also been dealing with a large maintenance backlog. Over four weeks this spring, agency workers completed more than 800 work orders for infrastructure repairs and improvements. They included electrical and plumbing upgrades, as well as repairs to food service and heating and air conditioning systems.

“We are very involved in addressing staffing and other challenges at MDC Brooklyn,” the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement.

According to prosecutors, Simpson and Thomas attacked Whyte (arming themselves with improvised weapons and engaging in a series of two-on-one attacks on him) after Whyte and Simpson got into a verbal dispute to start Simpson and Thomas were cellmates at the time and attacked Whyte in his own cell, prosecutors said. The violence escalated over about 15 minutes, prosecutors said, culminating in a wound to Whyte’s neck that severed his carotid artery.

In the attack on Cordero, according to the prosecutors, Santiago, Aziz and Bazemore confronted him after a dispute between Cordero and Santiago, who stabbed him in the middle of the chest, piercing parts of his heart. Bazemore then stabbed him in the back and Aziz and Bazemore repeatedly stabbed, punched and kicked him, prosecutors said, even after he fell and tried to defend himself with a board .

An ongoing Associated Press investigation has uncovered deep, previously unreported failures within the Bureau of Prisons, an agency with more than 30,000 employees, 158,000 inmates, 122 facilities and an annual budget of about $8 billion.

AP reports rampant criminal activity by staff, dozens of escapes, ongoing violence, deaths and severe staffing shortages that have hampered emergency responses, including inmate attacks and suicides.

In April, the Bureau of Prisons said it was closing its women’s prison in Dublin, California, known as the “rape club”, abandoning efforts to reform the facility after an investigation AP revealed sexual abuse of the staff towards prisoners.

In July, President Joe Biden signed a law strengthening oversight of the Bureau of Prisons after an AP report shed light on the agency’s many failures.