The local paper for Downtown wn WEEK OF DECEMBER VIOLIN LESSONS FOR LITTLE ONES < CITY ARTS, P. 12
4-10 2014
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HORSE-BAN VOTE COULD COME NEXT YEAR
In Brief MAYOR HIGHLIGHTS LATEST CRIME STATS
NEWS Mayor Bill de Blasio’s long-delayed plans to ban the city’s horse carriages are finally moving forward with a bill that phases out the industry by 2016 and dangles a carrot for the soon-tobe unemployed drivers: a career driving a taxi. That measure was set to be introduced at a City Council meeting next week but it already drew fierce opposition from the 400 drivers and stable hands who say it was an insult to suggest they could be satisfied with another way of life. “We want to stay in business, and the horse is our business, “ said Christina Hansen, a carriage horse driver who claimed de Blasio is ill-informed on the issue. “The mayor still hasn’t been to the stables.” During his bid for mayor a year ago, Bill de Blasio repeatedly told supporters that “on Day One” he would end what he saw as the inhumane practice of the colorful coaches clip-clopping their way through Central Park and the surrounding streets. City Council Speaker Melissa MarkViverito confirmed that the bill currently being drafted with the mayor’s support would likely be voted on early next year, and de Blasio said he would not be in favor of further delays. “We think it’s time to end horse carriages in this city and it’s time to act on it,” he said. Under the bill, the industry would be phased out by the middle of 2016, with exceptions made for film sets and some parades. The bill would offer job training classes and the waiver of nearly all the fees associated with the license to drive a green taxi, which predominantly pick up passengers outside the heart of Manhattan. “We’re in the tourist field, not the
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THE TRAGEDY AFTER INVESTIGATION As many as 260 pedestrians are expected to die this year on New York City streets. But almost none of the drivers involved in those cases will be prosecuted -- adding to the nightmare for the families of the victims.
BY JILL ABRAMSON ofia Russo was 45 minutes late for her appointment with justice. But she didn’t miss much. On Nov. 20, Judge Gregory Carro swiftly pushed off until January the sentencing of Franklin Reyes, the teenager who ran over and killed Russo’s 4-year-old daughter, Ariel. So, as she did on this day, Russo, a teacher, will find someone to cover for her class next month when she returns to court again, hoping to
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see Reyes punished for Ariel’s death, now more than a year and a half ago, in June 2013. Russo said in an interview that she finds cruel irony in the fact that she teaches history to boys the same age as Reyes, who was 17 when he ran over Ariel and her grandmother in a Nissan Frontier SUV in front of the little girl’s preschool on the Upper West Side. This is why she initially sympathized with Reyes. “The majority of my kids are 16 and 17, including a lot of troubled boys. This could have been one of my students,” she said. But empathy has hardened into rage in the months since the accident. Although Reyes had tried to flee the scene, backing up so violently he pinned Ariel and her grandmother to a nearby restaurant’s metal grating, he was treated leniently, charged as a minor and freed on bail. This despite the fact that the crash that killed Ariel was the result of another crime: Reyes was driving without a license, speeding up Am-
sterdam Avenue in an attempt to flee from cops who had seen him driving erratically and ordered him to pull over. The chase ended with the fatal crash on 97th Street. Originally, by giving him bail and charging him as a minor, Judge Carro was giving Reyes a chance to avoid having a public criminal record. But on Sept. 3, Reyes was again stopped for driving recklessly, without a license. This time, in speeding away, Reyes dragged the cop 100 feet and then led police on another chase, hitting a car and almost injuring a parking attendant before he was arrested. This time, he was sent to Rikers Island, where he has been ever since, except for a visit to a city hospital for chest pains, after which he again ran away from the police and had to be chased down. (In the months before that arrest, Reyes was charged with petty larceny for stealing from an apartment building where his father was the super.)
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Mayor de Blasio and Police Commissioner Bratton announced the city’s latest crime numbers and outlined the administration’s work this year to strengthen the relationship between police and community. De Blasio and Bratton also announced that the NYPD body camera pilot program will begin this week, starting with the training of three commands where stop-and-frisk rates have been the highest: PSA 2, 40 Precinct, and the 120 Precinct. The mayor announced that the overall index crime is down 4.4 percent at the end of November, and that homicides in New York City have decreased by 6.8 percent; robbery is down 14.4 percent; and rape is down 2.9 percent from already historically low numbers. The four month period of August through November has had the lowest number of shooting incidents and homicides compared to prior August through November periods since 1993.
MOTORCYCLIST DEAD AFTER HIGHWAY CRASH A motorcyclist is dead after he crashed on a Manhattan highway and was thrown in front of a moving minivan. Police responded to the accident Saturday night on the Henry Hudson Parkway near West 72nd Street. When officers arrived, they found the 44-year-old victim lying on the roadway, unconscious and unresponsive. He was declared dead at the scene. Minutes earlier, police say the man was on a motorcycle heading south in the passing lane. He struck the center median, flew off the bike and landed in a northbound lane where the minivan struck and killed him. The driver remained at the scene until police arrived. The name of the motorcyclist was not released pending family notification.