Yeshiva World News

The New York State Police continue to search for escaped Clinton Correctional Facility inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat.

The focus of the ground search Thursday is a heavily wooded area off New York State Route 374, east of Dannemora. Search teams are following up on a lead that was developed late Wednesday.

Thursday’s search involves more than 500 law enforcement personnel, along with K9 and aviation units. The State Police are being assisted by the FBI, U.S. Marshals, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, officers from the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, Department of Environmental Conservation, Forest Rangers, Clinton and Essex County Sheriff Departments, and the Plattsburgh Police Department.

Route 374 remains closed between General Leroy Manor Road and Rand Hill Road in the town of Plattsburgh. The road will remain closed during this search. In addition, residents in the area can expect to see an increased police presence throughout the day.

The State Police want to thank local residents and businesses for their patience and cooperation during this search.

The public should make no hesitation to report any suspicious activity; that includes any sign of a trespass, burglary or vehicle larceny. Contact 911, your local law enforcement agency, or the New York State Police to report any information related to this investigation at (518) 563-3761 or 1-800-GIVETIP. Tips can also be sent by email to crimetip@troopers.ny.gov.

(YWN Desk – NYC)

A man has been indicted on first-degree murder and other charges in last month’s shooting of a New York Police Department officer.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown announced the indictment of Demetrius Blackwell on Thursday in the death of Officer Brian Moore.

Moore died May 4, two days after being shot in the head while attempting to stop a man suspected of carrying a handgun.

Authorities had said Moore and his partner were in an unmarked police car when they approached Blackwell in a quiet Queens neighborhood after seeing him adjusting his waistband. Police say they exchanged words before Blackwell suddenly turned, pulled out a weapon and fired.

The 25-year-old Moore was the son, nephew and cousin of police officers.

Blackwell’s attorney has said he denies the charges.

(AP)

More than 300 police officers will surge into some of New York City’s higher crime neighborhoods Thursday night.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Police Commissioner William Bratton touted the Summer All Out program on Wednesday as a means to drive down the city’s rising rate of murders and shootings.

There were 143 murders in the city through June 7, up from 121 during the same period last year.

But officials stress that they are concentrated in just a few neighborhoods.

The NYPD will move 330 officers from desk jobs to 10 precincts and 4 public housing sectors to focus on crime there.

The same tactic a year ago quelled a pre-summer rise in shootings.

The rise in violence has generated overheated tabloid headlines and a political predicament for de Blasio.

(AP)

Authorities searching for two escaped killers who have been on the loose for the better part of a week acknowledged being in the dark about their whereabouts or doings, even as the hunt for the men expanded past state borders.

At a news conference outside the maximum-security prison on Wednesday, New York State Police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico said, “I have no information on where they are or what they’re doing, to be honest with you.”

Authorities expanded the search after investigators learned that the inmates had talked before last weekend’s breakout about going to neighboring Vermont.

“We have information that suggests they thought New York was going to be hot. Vermont would be cooler, in terms of law enforcement,” Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin said at the news conference with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Shumlin and other officials would not say how authorities learned that information.

On Thursday morning, a Philadelphia cab driver reported picking up two men who matched the descriptions of the escaped killers, Richard Matt and David Sweat, and dropping them off at the city’s Amtrak station. Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said such possible sightings have been reported in several cities and he had no reason to think the inmates were in Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, Wednesday night another search began closer to the prison.

D’Amico said that a prison employee — identified in news reports as Joyce Mitchell, a training supervisor at the prison tailor shop — had befriended the killers and “may have had some role in assisting them.”

He would not elaborate.

Mitchell’s son, Tobey Mitchell, told NBC that she checked herself into a hospital with chest pains Saturday. He said she wouldn’t have helped the inmates escape.

Using power tools, inmates Sweat and Matt cut through a steel wall, broke through bricks and crawled through a steam pipe before emerging through a manhole in the street outside the 3,000-inmate Clinton Correctional Facility in far northern New York, about 20 miles from the Canadian border.

The breakout was discovered early Saturday, meaning the inmates may have had a head start of several hours, Cuomo said.

Authorities suspect the inmates had help from the inside in obtaining the power tools. Unions representing guards and civilian staff members at the prison said many have been questioned by investigators but no one has been disciplined or charged.

Vermont authorities are patrolling Lake Champlain and areas alongside it, Shumlin said. Cuomo urged the people of Vermont to be on the alert and report anything suspicious, warning: “Trust me, these men are nothing to be trifled with.”

A road east of Dannemora remained closed Thursday morning at state troopers manned road blocks, and the 1,500-student Saranac Central School District called off classes because of all the police activity in the area just four miles east of the prison.

As part of the search, state troopers and correction officers in helmets and body armor retraced their steps around the prison, checking garage doors, sheds, windows and other structures for signs of a break-in or other clues.

More than 450 federal and state law enforcement officers were taking part in the search, including customs agents, federal marshals and park rangers.

The killers’ mugshots have been put on more than 50 digital billboards in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, police said, and a $100,000 reward has been posted.

Law enforcement officials again asked the public to report anything out of the ordinary.

“We don’t want them out searching the woods,” Sheriff David Favro said. “But if you’re sitting on your porch, get your binoculars out and see if you see something unusual.”

In Dannemora, Barbara McCasland said officers asked to search her home but she told them no.

“I’m pretty battened down here,” she said. “My windows are locked and everything.”

As the manhunt dragged on, she said she was getting worried: “I wasn’t in the beginning, but seeing that they’ve been out there so long, I am a little nervous.”

Many in the prison town greeted the return of the searchers with a shrug. Many suspect Sweat and Matt are long gone and they are past any danger.

“I’m not worried about it,” Jackie Trombley said.

Referring to the searchers swarming the area, she said: “We’ve got these guys down the road. They’re everywhere, so it really doesn’t bother me.”

(AP)

Two Pakistani-born brothers are facing lengthy prison sentences after pleading guilty in Florida to charges that they organized a terror plot against New York City landmarks.

U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom was set to sentence 32-year-old Sheheryar Alam Qazi and 22-year-old Raees Alam Qazi on Thursday. The men pleaded guilty in March to several terrorism-related charges, including conspiracy to provide material support.

The brothers also pleaded guilty to assaulting two U.S. marshals while being escorted in the Miami court complex.

Authorities say the alleged plot never got beyond planning stages. The FBI says Raees Qazi traveled to the city in 2012 to scout targets but didn’t attempt any attacks. He was arrested after returning to Broward County, Florida, where the brothers lived.

Key evidence includes FBI wiretap and other communications intercepts.

(AP)

With just one week until the end of the New York Legislative Session on June 17, leaders of the Orthodox Union, UJA-Federation of New York and Agudath Israel of America joined together on Tuesday in Albany to urge state lawmakers to pass the Parental Choice in Education Act.

The delegation met with State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan and with 20 Members of the Assembly, including Phil Goldfeder, Michael Simanowitz, David Weprin, Sean Ryan, Anthony Brindisi, Jeffrey Dinowitz, Shelley Mayer, and Latrice Walker.

Each of the elected officials noted the importance of the group’s presence in Albany for pushing the bill forward and elevating the bill’s status among legislators. Senate Majority Leader Flanagan encouraged the group to keep up the phone calls and emails until the end of the Legislative Session. “It’s crucial that you continue to fight for this bill and express how important the bill is to your community.” said Senate Majority Leader Flanagan

To date, the New York Jewish community has sent more than 9,000 letters to state legislators urging them to support education tax credits.

“Our three organizations are united to push for passage of the Parental Choice in Education Act because we agree that Jewish education is important to the future of the Jewish people and because this bill is good for all schoolchildren in New York, public, private and parochial,” said Jake Adler, New York Director of Policy for the Orthodox Union. “We are mobilizing the Jewish day school and yeshiva community throughout New York State to help pass this bill and we will continue to fight for this bill until it becomes law.”

“By creating incentives for individual, foundation and business philanthropy and thereby increasing the scholarship dollars available for non-public schools to use, the Parental Choice in Education Act provides much-needed relief to tuition-paying families,” said Jeff Leb, Managing Director for Government and External Relations at UJA-Federation of New York.

“We are here in Albany to make sure our legislators hear our voice and see that we are united as a community behind the Parental Choice in Education Act,” said Rabbi Shai Markowitz, Director of the Lefkowitz Leadership Initiative of Agudath Israel of America. “We call on our legislators to pass this critical funding bill.”

By encouraging individuals and corporations to make charitable contributions to public schools or scholarship-making organizations for tuition-paying families, and allocating funds for a $500 per child tax credit for low-income families who send their children to non-public schools, the Parental Choice in Education Act could generate an unprecedented amount of support to tuition-paying families and ensure that the program benefits the broadest swath of New York’s schoolchildren.

(YWN Desk – NYC)

New York City’s Board of Health has voted to consider the mayor’s plan to resolve a dispute with the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community over a tradition known as Metzitzah B’peh.

Health officials have linked 17 cases of infant herpes since 2000 to the ancient ritual. Herpes can lead to brain damage or death.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has said circumcisers should no longer be required to obtain signed consent forms. His administration will ask hospitals, obstetricians and pediatricians to distribute information about health risks.

Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration instituted the consent rule. Rabbis opposed it.

Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Travis Bassett says the “well-meaning rule” has had a polarizing effect and is difficult to implement.

The health board will hold a public comment period.

(AP)

New York’s highest court has ruled that medical examiners don’t have to return to families all organs from autopsied bodies or even tell them parts are missing.

The case involves a New York City couple who buried their 17-year-old son after a 2005 car crash, not knowing his brain had been removed.

Two months after the funeral, Jesse Shipley’s high school class saw his brain in a labeled jar during a morgue field trip.

The Shipleys got it back and had a second funeral.

A jury awarded them $1 million for emotional distress, reduced to $600,000 by a midlevel court.

The Court of Appeals said Wednesday that medical examiners have discretion to tell families organs have been kept and have no liability for not doing it.

(AP)

The mother of one of the two escapees from a maximum-security prison in northern New York says she wants “nothing to do” with her son now that he’s the subject of a massive manhunt.

Pamela Sweat of Conklin told the Press & Sun-Bulletin of Binghamton on Tuesday that 34-year-old David Sweat’s childhood was marked by behavioral problems and violent tendencies.

Authorities say Sweat and fellow murderer 48-year-old Richard Matt broke out of Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora last weekend by using power tools to cut through steel walls and pipes. They remain at large Wednesday.

David Sweat was sent to prison for killing a sheriff’s deputy near Binghamton in 2002.

His mother says she and her son wrote to each other several times a month, but his letters stopped about two months ago.

(AP)

The following is via Breaking911.com:

Cops in the Bronx have just shot an armed man dead – less than 12 hours after cops shot an armed man in East Harlem.

Highly credible sources confirm to Breaking911.com that uniformed officers assigned to the 56 precinct in the Bronx were dispatched to 2000 Valentine Ave (Twin Parks South West) at around 8:02AM, Wednesday morning, to a call of a man with a firearm.

When they arrived, they found a 19-year-old female with a gunshot wound – and a 19-year-old male black with a firearm. The suspect flees into a bedroom where the officers direct the male several times to drop his weapon at which time the perp pointed his weapon at the officers.

The officers fired their weapons striking the perp several times.

The perpetrator was removed to St Barnabas Hospital where he has been pronounced DOA.

The female victim, shot once in the left shoulder (by perp) has been removed to St Barnabas Hospital, not likely to die.

There are no injuries reported to the officers. Four UMOS have been removed to Jacobi Hospital with Tinnitus at this time.

The investigation is ongoing.

(Source: Breaking911.com)

A New Jersey Transit bus rear-ended a private bus carrying Canadian schoolchildren inside the Lincoln Tunnel on Wednesday, injuring more than 30 people and slowing traffic on one of the busiest routes for commuters entering and leaving New York City, authorities said.

The crash happened at around 9:30 a.m. in the center tube on the New York side of the tunnel connecting it with New Jersey, said Joe Pentangelo, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police, which operates the tunnel.

None of the 26 students and two adults from the Toronto school was hurt, according to Anna Caputo, spokeswoman for the Toronto District School Board. The group was heading to New York for a graduation trip, she said.

As for the transit bus, Pentangelo said 35 to 40 people were hurt, and the four most severely injured had neck and back injuries. The Fire Department of New York said 31 people were taken to hospitals with injuries that weren’t considered life-threatening.

A 32-year-old woman also went into labor while stuck in the tunnel. She was taken to a hospital.

There were approximately 60 riders on the NJ Transit bus heading from Cresskill, New Jersey, to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, the transit agency said. At least two people were taken out of the tunnel on stretchers and two others walked out with the help of emergency personnel. People with bloody noses were being treated at a triage station set up outside the tunnel.

Jaehoon Chung, a carpenter who was going to work on the NJ Transit bus, said the impact of the crash felt like a minor collision.

He said the passengers were stuck on the bus for 10 to 20 minutes because the door was damaged.

“We couldn’t get out. The door was bent,” he said. “Everyone was calm. We all waited until a cop came.”

There are delays of up to one hour heading into New York. The two lanes of the center tube in the tunnel reopened before noon.

The Port Authority says 42 million vehicles a year travel through the tunnel. The tunnel is comprised of three tubes built beneath the Hudson River.

(AP)

Councilman David G. Greenfield and Councilman Mark Levine condemned today the rise of anti-Semitic crimes citywide. This past year to date, anti-Semitic crimes throughout New York City have spiked 29 percent according to the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force. In May, Councilman Greenfield’s district saw three reported incidents of hate crimes. The first was two swastikas etched outside a local kosher supermarket and the second was four swastikas drawn in marker on a rail guard. Finally, and most disturbingly, were multiple hate messages scrawled on the Mirrer Yeshiva on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. These attacks and overall rise in anti-Semitic crimes demonstrate the urgency and necessity for Councilman Greenfield’s legislation, Introduction 65, which would guarantee non-public schools a security guard at the school’s request.

“We can’t ignore the blatant anti-Semitic attacks that are spiking throughout New York City. We have to face the facts: religiously motivated crimes are up. Every New Yorker deserves to be safe from bias attacks. However, certainly our most vulnerable citizens — our children — deserve to be protected. We need Mayor de Blasio to support the Council’s legislation providing security guards for yeshivas before it’s too late,” said Councilman Greenfield.

“The rise in hate crimes against Jewish New Yorkers should alarm us all,” said Councilman Mark Levine, Chair of the Jewish Caucus. “We must do everything we can to reverse this trend, and to protect those most vulnerable — particularly children at Jewish schools.”

Introduction 65 has received overwhelming support from the religious communities and a super majority of the New York City Council. As of today, 46 of 51 members have signed onto Greenfield’s bill. The bill has received additional support from Public Advocate Letitia James, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, the Orthodox Union, Agudath Israel of America, the UJA-Federation, the Sephardic Community Federation, the Catholic Community Relations Council, the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens, the Archdiocese of New York, the Muslim Community Network, the Islamic Schools Association of New York and the NYS Association of Independent Schools. To learn more information about the bill and help pass it, visit: www.schoolsafety.nyc.

(YWN Desk – NYC)

A poorly crafted joint in a plastic Con Edison gas line and an 8-year-old break in an old city sewer line were the likely causes of an explosion that killed eight people in New York City last year, federal investigators said Tuesday.

The weakness of the plastic pipe joint was exposed because the soil that supported it was washed away by groundwater flowing into a gaping hole in the brick sewer line, the National Transportation Safety Board said.

Both Con Ed and the city took issue with the conclusion, each claiming the other was fully responsible for the March 12, 2014, blast. The morning explosion also injured 50 people, left more than 100 families homeless and disrupted train travel by throwing debris onto the Metro-North Railroad tracks above the street.

Con Ed blamed the sewer breach entirely, saying, “Not all of the participants involved in this investigation reached the same conclusion concerning the sequence of infrastructure failures.”

City spokeswoman Amy Spitalnick said blaming the sewer line “appears unsupported by the facts,” noting that the breach was 43 feet from the gas pipe connection.

“The full investigation reveals that a properly fused fusion joint would not have failed,” she said.

The NTSB said the worker who made the saddle joint in the plastic gas line in 2011 — so a new building could get gas from the main — failed to ensure that the two surfaces were clean. That contaminated the joint, which was made by melting the plastic, the agency said.

The defective joint “was the only credible source of natural gas that could have provided a large enough flow rate” to fuel the explosion, the NTSB said. But the joint opened up because the gas line was sagging as a result of the erosion beneath it, the board said.

If the break in the sewer main had been repaired after it was detected in 2006, the explosion might have been prevented, the board said.

It said that when a report of a gas odor was called in to Con Ed on the day of the explosion, a dispatcher notified the city fire department, but when the department called back for an address, the dispatcher said, “Hold up. No, sorry. Hold up one second. Hold on. I will call you back. I will call you right back,” but did not follow up.

The NTSB’s staff analysis said the fire department could have reached the scene 15 minutes before the explosion and perhaps would have begun an evacuation. During a discussion, however, NTSB members cautioned that it’s not clear any lives would have been saved.

Other findings included:

—Several people reported after the explosion that they had smelled gas the day before, but none called it in.

—Con Ed’s public education program did not effectively tell customers what to do when detecting a gas odor.

—If Con Ed had installed appropriate valves on the gas line, the leaking main could have been isolated and turned off more quickly after the explosion.

—The gas line installer’s qualification credentials were not up to date.

The board recommended that Con Ed revise its plastic welding procedures; provide guidelines and training on how to notify the fire department of an emergency; and install more isolation valves.

Con Ed said — and the NTSB agreed — that it has already implemented several remedies.

“We agree with many of the NTSB’s recommendations, and many new gas safety and quality control measures are already underway,” the company said.

The NTSB also recommended that New York City implement new procedures to ensure the integrity of sewer lines and make timely repairs.

(AP)

The following is via Breaking911.com:

At 7:57PM on Tuesday evening, NYPD Officers from the “Special Victims Unit” were driving an unmarked vehicle and wearing plain clothes when they observed a male shoot another male and 102nd Street and 1st Avenue.

The officers reportedly exited their vehicle and confronted the suspect.

Highly credible sources tell Breaking911.com that the suspect turned his gun on one of the officers – leading to the oficer firing his weapon, striking the suspect in the chest.

At the scene a .22 gun and 3 shell casings were recovered.

The victim was identified as 21-year-old Rajeev S. Gobia. He had walked into Metropolitan Hospital. Doctors report that he has a bullet entry to the right thigh and a flesh wound to the left side of the groin. He is being treated at Harlem Hospital.

The suspect is 26-year-old Wilvinson A. Diaz – who was shot in the chest by the officer.

Both are expected to survive.

The Officer who fired his weapon was taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital, it’s unclear the extent of his/her injuries.

(Source: Breaking911.com)

A small group of demonstrators is protesting at New York City Hall against the possibility of hiring 1,000 new police officers.

More than a dozen folks chanted “No new cops!” Tuesday morning.

Several of them held signs that singled out individual city councilmembers, demanding that they not “betray” their communities by advocating for more police officers.

A council proposal to hire the new officers has become a sticking point in the new budget.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has not supported the move though his police commissioner has signaled some support for the idea.

The advocates believe that the additional officers will add strain to the at-times-tense relations between the police and communities of color.

Proponents of the plan say it will lead to more effective and equitable policing.

(AP)

State and federal law officers searching for two killers who used power tools to break out of a maximum-security prison poured into a small town 30 miles away Tuesday after getting a report of a possible sighting.

Dozens of officers with arms linked pushed through woods and fields in the town of Willsboro in an apparent attempt to drive their prey toward a road in a neighboring community. The road was lined with officers with rifles.

State Police Capt. John Tibbitts Jr. would not say if authorities believed they were closing in on the inmates.

The officers descended on the town just west of Lake Champlain after residents reported seeing a couple of men walking on a road late Monday during a driving rainstorm.

Authorities have fielded numerous tips since the weekend escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, close to the Canadian border, but appeared to have jumped hardest on this one.

David Sweat, 34, and Richard Matt, 48, cut through a steel wall, broke through bricks and crawled through a steam pipe before emerging through a manhole outside the prison grounds.

They were discovered missing early Saturday after stuffing their beds with clothes to fool guards on their rounds and leaving behind a taunting note: “Have a nice day.”

Given the meticulous planning that went into the breakout itself, there was speculation that the inmates had lined up a ride for themselves outside the prison and were long gone from the area. On Monday, authorities said the inmates could be anywhere — perhaps Canada or Mexico.

On Tuesday, Willsboro dairy farmer George Sayward said he saw troopers parked next to his barn around 5 a.m., and they told him they were there because of a possible sighting of the convicts. Around 7 a.m., Sayward said, he heard one trooper tell another to call in 100 more men.

“The next thing I know, there were a ton of them, by the busload,” Sayward said.

The escape from the 3,000-inmate state prison immediately raised suspicions the men had help on the inside.

Investigators questioned prison workers and outside contractors to try to find out who may have supplied the men with the power tools. Contractors have been doing extensive renovations at the 170-year-old prison, a hulking, fortresslike structure that looms over Dannemora’s main street.

Among other questions raised: Didn’t someone hear the noise from the tools? How did the inmates hide the hole, the dirt and dust from work that probably took days to accomplish? And did they have blueprints or other inside information to find their way through the bowels of the prison?

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said other inmates claimed they didn’t see or hear anything. “They’re all heavy sleepers,” he said sardonically.

And state Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, chairman of the Correction Committee, said any inmate who heard drilling wouldn’t dare report it. “That will get you killed — that’s the kind of environment it is,” he said.

A $100,000 reward was posted over the weekend for information leading to the men’s capture.

Sweat was convicted in the 2002 killing of a sheriff’s deputy and was doing life without parole. Matt was serving 25 years to life for kidnapping and dismembering his boss in 1997.

(AP)

The leader of the New York state Assembly’s Republican minority says lawmakers are missing an opportunity to address the “cloud” of corruption that’s hung over the state Capitol for years.

GOP leader Brian Kolb says Tuesday that there’s still time for lawmakers to take up comprehensive ethics reforms before they adjourn next week. But he says he’s not optimistic they will.

The two men picked to lead the Assembly and Senate in January have been charged with corruption-related crimes and are just the latest of several lawmakers to face ethics questions in recent years.

Kolb supports term limits on leadership positions to reduce corruption, but that idea isn’t supported by Assembly Democrats. Other ideas that haven’t gotten a vote include restrictions on lawmakers’ outside income and tighter campaign finance rules.

(AP)

Senator Felder (D – Brooklyn) joined Senator John Bonacic (R,C,I – Mt. Hope) to pass legislation to protect school children. Senate Bill S1634 amends the vehicle and traffic law by increasing the penalties for passing a stopped school bus.

“Passing a stopped school bus can, G-d forbid, kill or seriously injure children who may be getting on or off that bus,” said Senator Felder. “We must do everything in our power to ensure the safety of our children.”

“How can it be that current law provides that an individual convicted two or more times of speeding in a construction zone is subject to sixty days suspension of his or her driver’s license, but passing a stopped school bus two or more times does not carry the same penalty,” questioned Senator Felder. “This legislation guarantees that people who put school children at such grave risk will be punished for their selfish actions. It not only creates a safer environment for our children, but also gives their parents piece of mind.”

(YWN Desk – NYC)

New York City police officials are working to recruit more Muslims.

Right now, there are about 800 Muslim uniformed police officers out of about 35,000. Of those, only about 20 are higher ranked officials.

The commanding officer of the community affairs immigration outreach unit, Lt. Adeel Rana, said Monday there’s been a slow increase over the past decade.

But that’s changed quickly since the new administration took over.

In addition to the department’s youth cricket league and soccer league, the NYPD is also expanding a cadet program where college students are given stipends and fast-tracked to a job.

Officers also attend community meetings and fairs.

A video played during the department’s annual pre-Ramadan conference showed dozens of uniformed officers who are Muslim saying: “We are your NYPD.”

(AP)