The Bronx Ink

A 16th officer was arrested Thursday night as a part of the long-running grand jury investigation into the widespread ticket-fixing practice for family, friends, and colleagues.  The New York Times reported that according to knowledgeable sources, it was expected that 15 police officers will surrender by Friday morning to face criminal charges in the Bronx.

A Bronx family is suing police for pushing their tiny dog out of a third-story window – but cops say the officer was just trying to quiet the yapping menace during a chaotic raid, the NY Daily News reported.

Iris Ramos says in her suit that cops burst into her Castle Hill apartment last October and threatened her family with guns. When Chuwie, her miniature doberman-pomeranian mix, started barking at the cops, one of them smacked it out of the window, according to the suit, filed in Bronx Supreme Court.

The federal government announced that it is extending nearly $1 million in grants to improve domestic violence cases in the Bronx, according to NY1.

The federal money will go to the Bronx district attorney’s office, the city Department of Probation, the NYPD and Safe Horizon, a nationwide victim service center.

The grant will also go toward future events sponsored by Safe Horizon, an anti-violence advocate in the Bronx and the city.

A Bronx drug ring fell in the hands of federal agents, who accused them of conspiring with a Washington Heights doctor to sell thousands of Oxycodone pills, according to DNAInfo.

The bust comes in the wake of a crackdown on the illegal sale of prescription drugs in Washington Heights.

Felix Rodriguez, 50, allegedly supplied drug, which the dealers referred to as “jelly beans,” from the spring 2009 through May 2011. The Bronx gang also allegedly sold hard drugs along with the pills.

Robert Weston of the South Bronx makes a living providing “fillers” or taking part in police lineups and for each lineup he fills, he earns $10.

Weston said he has never failed to produce lineups when asked, no matter what time of night. But these days, the work has slowed down.

“There’s not enough crime now,” Mr. Weston told NY Times. “But it comes and goes, and there’ll always going to be knuckleheads stealing phones.”

The practice, however, is under fresh legal scrutiny in light of new findings that suggested mistaken identifications in lineups are a leading cause of wrongful convictions, and that witnesses can be steered toward selecting the suspect arrested by the police.

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.

Police got involved in a shooting a East 187th Street and Prospect Avenue just after midnight Wednesday, WABC news.

Two groups of men got into a shootout with each other before officers reportedly also opened fire, according to WABC.

One person was wounded in the leg and fled. A man showed up at St. Barnabas Hospital with a similar injury later.

No arrests have been made, and no officers were hurt, reports WABC.

Four cops faced disciplinary action in July after playing football with a 7-year-old boy at a Bronx housing project, reports the New York Daily News. The officers say the oversensitivity of the misconduct charges will impact the relationship officers have with their community.

Deputy Chief James McNamara, commanding officer of the Bronx Housing Bureau, apparently saw the cops tossing the football with the boy on the Fourth of July and was “irate,” according to the Daily News report.

Two of the four officers are fighting the disciplinary charges, but face harsh consequences if they are found guilty of failing to remain alert on the job.