The Bronx Ink

A Bronx grand jury has indicted 5 civilians along with 17 cops for the ticket-fixing scandal that has captivated the city, reports the New York Daily News.

The civilians are thought to be suspected drug dealers, or those caught doing financial favors to cops involved with the ticket-fixing scandal.

Though the grand jury is still sealed, charges against the 22 people in the case are expected to be revealed next week.

A Bronx grand jury has begun to vote on whether to bring charges to police officers accused  in the widespread ticket-fixing scandal, reports the New York Times.

Amongst those possible facing charges relating to ticket-fixing are 10 officials of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, including as many as seven Bronx precinct delegates and three higher-ranking police union officials from the Bronx.

The investigation into the ticket-fixing began almost three years ago, after an officer was caught on wiretap talking about the allegations of ticket-fixing.

Two rookie cops arrested Jose Milan, 29, of the Bronx on Saturday after spotting him with more than half a million dollars worth of cocaine — 29 kilos to be exact, reports the New York Daily News. Milan has been charged with drug possession.

The arrest was made at about 4 p.m. at the corner of West 190th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Fort George, according to the Daily News. As cops got closer to Milan on the corner, he got nervous, dropped two duffel bags and walked away. Bricks of cocaine worth $667,000 were found inside.

Seventeen New York police officers were indicted by a grand jury in the Bronx yesterday, reported the New York Daily News.

The investigation, which included a number of union delegates, had gone on for two years, focusing mainly on the largest police union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. Though the probe involved more than 500 officers, the 17 accused will face arraignments next week for perjury, bribery, obstruction, grand larceny and official misconduct. More details should be available after the arraignments, reports the Daily News.

Michelle Anglin and Kollen Robinson, the two police officers accused of assaulting a Bronx motorist in a traffic dispute in Williamsbridge, were back at the Bronx County Supreme Court this morning to learn the start date for their trial, but the decision was postponed until June 3.

On the afternoon of Aug. 15, 2008, the two off-duty officers became involved in a confrontation with Marlon Smith near the intersection of East 218^th Street and White Plains Road. According to press reports, Robinson was driving her black Chevy Suburban SUV along White Plains Road when she was impeded by the open driver-side door of Smith’s parked vehicle.

Obscenities were exchanged between the officers and Smith, but the incident quickly escalated when, according to witnesses, Anglin got out from the passenger’s side and allegedly sprayed Smith with mace. Smith tried to leave his car to grab Anglin, but was thwarted when Robinson intervened and punched him. The New York Sun reported at the time that, according to the New York Police Department Internal Affairs Bureau’s criminal complaint, the officers then “repeatedly struck him about the head and body with closed fists.”

The bureau report stated that Anglin hit Smith with her gun, and one of the officers placed a gun at his head. Smith required 25 staples to close three lacerations suffered during the incident. The officers were arrested the following day after Smith provided the license plate number of Robinson’s SUV.

Sharifa Milena Nasser, the officers’ lawyer, said she expected the trial to commence in midsummer.

Upon leaving the courtroom, Anglin said she was not allowed to comment on the case.

Authorities displayed heroin they said was seized during a raid on an apartment in the Bronx. Photo: Courtesy of NYPD

On Thursday, four men were arrested and approximately $1 million worth of heroin was seized after an investigation by the New York Police Department’s Bronx Narcotics Major Case Squad and the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office culminated with a raid on an apartment in Parkchester. People with knowledge of the case said the bust was indicative of an increasing number of wholesale heroin operations in the Bronx.

Authorities said Apartment 1L in the building at 2112 Starling Ave. was used as a heroin mill, where the drug was packaged and processed before being distributed to a variety of dealers. Heroin packaged at the apartment was placed in glassine envelopes, which according to a press release issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration, were stamped with the brand names “Almighty,” “Heat Wave,” “Maserati” and “Body Bag.”

The exterior of 2112 Starling Avenue, where police said they seized approximately $1 million worth of heroin. Photo: Courtesy of NYPD

Arrested in conjunction with the raid were four men, including 28-year-old Luis Lara, who was described by the DEA as, “a manager of the drug trafficking organization.” Lara was observed, according to the press release, “traveling to both JFK Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport on Sunday and then returning to The Bronx.” Law enforcement officials also said they arrested 28-year-old Jose Polo, who was stopped leaving the apartment with a backpack containing 3,000 glassines of heroin, and two other men who worked at the Parkchester mill. In total, the DEA said the search of the apartment uncovered seven kilos of heroin prepackaged in 50,000 envelopes along with “cardboard boxes of empty glassines, scales and coffee grinders used for cutting the heroin” and “other paraphernalia.”

A source with knowledge of this investigation described heroin mills as a growing problem in the Bronx. Officials said this was a large drug operation, but that there have been at least four major raids on heroin mills in the Bronx since last July, including seizures more than twice the size of this latest bust. New York City special narcotics prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan released a statement  that said the bust was “one of many significant heroin seizures in the city over the past nine months.” Brennan’s statement cited  a case last July when police officers found a quarter of a million envelopes of the drug, five times as many as were seized in Thursday’s raid.

By Alec Johnson

Early Monday afternoon Yesenia Rodriguez ran down the stairs from the second floor in the Morrisania Air Rights apartment complex at 3073 Park Ave. in the South Bronx.  She was crying. The man upstairs, she said in Spanish, had thrown her to the ground and threatened to kill her.

Police Officer Robert Salerno (NYPD)

She found neighbor, Jimmy Molina, 54, reading a newspaper in the lobby. She told him that Santiago Urena, the son of an elderly woman she cared for, was making repeated sexual advances towards her and she was fed up. When she threatened to call the police he pulled out a gun and yelled, “I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill you.”

She and Molina called 911 and as they waited she told him the story.  A few minutes later, about 12:30 p.m. four police officers from the 44th precinct entered the lobby.

“They asked where the guy with the gun was,” Molina said. He interpreted for the officers as Rodriguez told them Urena was on the second floor. Urena’s brother, Demetrio, 69, led them upstairs. Two cops, Molina said, ran up the stairs to apartment 2G and the other two took the elevator.

Less than a minute later Molina heard gunshots. Santiago Urena, 57, opened fire as officers approached a bedroom, police later said. Three .38 caliber bullets fired by Urena struck Police Officer Robert Salerno, 25. Two entered his unprotected lower abdomen and a third lodged in the bulletproof vest that covered his chest. Salerno returned fire, emptying his 16 round magazine. The three other officers shot a total of five times.

Molina was outside the building when about, he said, “two minutes later four cops brought him out carrying him.” Two held his legs and two held his hands — “running to the ambulance.”

This .38 caliber revolver was recovered by police from the crime scene. (NYPD)

Salerno, the first police officer shot in the line of duty this year, was taken to Lincoln Hospital where surgeons removed the bullets. Urena was not so lucky. Police who returned to the apartment after taking Salerno to the ambulance found Urena dead of what appeared to be a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. On Tuesday the medical examiner determined that police rounds killed Urena.

Urena’s 91-year-old mother was in another room of the apartment during the shooting and was later carried out of the building.

Police cordoned off the block and neighbors milled around the street in the afternoon rain. They were shocked by the shootout. Nelson Figuerola who lives on the 20th floor of the 23-floor building pointed across 158th street and said he would have expected gunplay over there, but not in his building.

“That building they call Vietnam,” he said. “This one is a lot better.”

Figuerola has lived in 2073 Park Ave. since 1982 and remembered Urena as a quiet man that used to work at the airport. “He cleaned airplanes,” he said. “Nobody expected this.”

Marie Garcia, 23, lives on the 16th floor and was awakened by sirens as dozens of police swarmed the area minutes after the shooting. She looked out her window and saw them running into the building. “They looked like sardines,” she said. “They were all trying to fit in the front door at once.”

The crowd of more than 100 that formed shortly after the shooting dispersed as heavier rain fell in the late afternoon. A handful returned after dark to watch the medical examiners wheel Urena’s body out on a stretcher.

A resident of 3073 Park Ave. in the Bronx reacts to questions by the media, Monday, after a police officer was shot in her building. (Alec Johnson/The Bronx Ink)