New York’s finest certainly exercise their authority in the five boroughs, but New York’s dumbest want to give it a shot, too. Last July in Queens, three men claiming to be police officers stopped a teenage boy and told him he matched the description of a wanted robber. The men, including 21-year-old Gazi Abura of Astoria, hassled the boy about his destination and made him present ID. The boy discovered that the men were impersonating officers after a video of the entire incident showed up on YouTube.com (the popular video website) in August. Abura was recently arraigned and, if convicted, he could face up to one year in prison.

Abura and friends aren’t the first crop of New Yorkers to play dress-up. Last Halloween, a man allegedly impersonated a firefighter in order to gain access to a former colleague's apartment is now being indicted on robbery charges in Ohio. Also on Halloween, Peter Braunstein, a 42-year-old writer, allegedly entered a woman’s Chelsea apartment, proceeded to tie her up and sexually abuse her for 13 hours. He then fled New York on November 1st and was captured in Memphis on December 16. Assistant District Attorney Maxine Rosenthal said the Ohio crime occurred between those dates. The announcement of the Ohio charge came at Braunstein’s State Supreme Court hearing in Manhattan. According to reports, Braunstein’s lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, will try to use a psychiatric illness defense for his client.