By Robert Proudfoot

After losing control of his car and driving onto the sidewalk and into a bike riding 8-year-old boy, a livery cab driver was presumed guilty and beaten by a crowd of Brooklyn bystanders Saturday. Sadly, it was his fare, who had pummeled him in the head with a metal bar, that ended up being the culprit that sent the child to the hospital. Not to leave out the head basher, the posse then turned on would-be robber Jean Willman, 31, and assaulted him while also choking him with a belt. The 8-year-old and the mistakenly guilty livery cab driver survived but were hospitalized. The NYPD arrived and arrested Willman to let the courts decide his guilt. 

Last Thursday, some police officers may have themselves jumped-the-gun on the guiltiness of 36-year-old Alexander “Sasha” Alhovsky. When the balloon maker left his air pump at a Starbucks last week, a barista called the cops fearing it might be a bomb. In a flash the NYPD surrounded the bike-riding balloon maker with guns in front of a crowd of children Thursday. After allegedly pointing their guns at him at point-blank range, Alhovsky explained that the lost brightly colored gadget was his $850 air pump. Sporting visible bruises and four hours of jail time, he was eventually released to continue his 15-year trade of making balloon animals and painting faces for children near the Central Park Zoo.