Crime Blotter
Crime Blotter
Failed suicides are no laughing matter. Not most of the time.
But sometimes the rare exception crops up, as in the case of 25-year-old Adrian Conde. Seems that last field goal in the Super Bowl cost Conde an awful lot of money. So the Morris Park resident (who still lives with his parents) did what any self-respecting gambler would do. He borrowed his girlfriend's station wagon, drove it onto the Whitestone Bridge, got out, took final stock of his situation and jumped 100 feet into the East River.
Or tried to, anyway. Depending on your perspective, Lady Luck was either with him that night (after snoozing through the game) or had long since fled to Reno, as Conde, poor sap, plunged into a 10-foot-deep snow pile on the riverbank. He received some scratches on his legs and a bump on the head, but is otherwise doing just fine. No word yet on how he intends to pay off that gambling debt.
Before trying any such thing again, Conde might want to watch The Tenant first. Or at least take a lesson from 32-year-old William Hodges. Now there's a man who just can't quit while he's ahead.
Hodges was a drug dealer who shot a rookie cop in Queens in 1999. In December of 2002, freed on a technicality, he was a very lucky and happy man. Then last July, he and his mother found themselves in Jamaica Hospital's emergency room with an unreported ailment. Feeling that they were being made to wait too long?imagine that, at a hospital?they raised a ruckus. When cops arrived on the scene, Hodges and his mom began fighting with them.
After telling officer Benedict Vitale, "I'll kick your fucking ass," Hodges attempted to do just that. Apparently the kick missed its mark, however, so Hodges did the next best thing?he bit the officer on the thigh.
In the seven months between the incident and his arraignment last Thursday on that "biting" charge, Hodges' mom has pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, and Hodges himself has been busted for drunk driving. Man, that guy just won't stop!
On the morning of Monday, Feb. 2, a 14-year-old Harlem girl decided that she was in the mood for a three-day weekend. Instead of playing hooky or pretending to be sick, she did something more creative?setting fire to the school.
Sure enough, the fire (set in a closet in a third-floor classroom) got the school evacuated. But the joke was on our little firebug?the students didn't get the day off; they were just shipped to other schools!
She's now being charged with criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and arson.
And residents of Chelsea can walk the streets without fear again, after last Wednesday's closing of Sessa. The nightclub, owned by former Buck Rogers nemesis Stratis Morfogen, had been the site of at least one rape, one robbery, 13 assaults and more than 30 police investigations since it opened less than a year ago.