Day: September 24, 2024

Bay Ridge residents are banding together to help the family of neighbor Segundo Reina-Gaon after he was identified as the victim of a fatal hit-and-run crash on Sept. 11.

Reina-Gaon, 74, was crossing Ridge Boulevard on Bay Ridge Avenue when he was struck by the driver of a white SUV, pushing him into another parked car. The driver fled, and Reina-Gaon was rushed to NYU Langone-Brooklyn, where he was pronounced dead.

Yessica Rivera created a GoFundMe campaign to support Reina-Gaon’s family. Reina-Goan was a father to five children and a grandfather to 20.

“We thank the community of Bay Ridge [for] the love and support that has been given to us in these most difficult times,” a note on the campaign from Rivera reads. “This leaves us with some good feelings that our father was a loved man by many people in the community of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Let’s not forget him and remember his life and his contributions as we celebrate his life spiritually.”

So far, the community has raised more than $6,000 toward a $15,000 goal.

“Ignacio was a kind and loving man,” wrote one local donor. “Our dog, Cooper, would see Ignacio on many mornings and I don’t know who was more excited.”

Local officials have also spoken out in support of the family.

“My understanding from speaking to some local Bay Ridge residents is that he worked locally, and he has family in Ecuador and they are really struggling financially to make his final arrangements,” Community Board 10 District Manager Josephine Beckmann told Brooklyn Paper. “And, you know, he was a wonderful family man who was very supportive. And he’ll be very much missed.”

Bay Ridge has seen several traffic collisions at notably dangerous intersections over the last few months, with some ending in fatalities.

Council Member Justin Brannan and State Sen. Andrew Gounardes — who both posted on X in support of Reina-Gaon’s family — have advocated for increased red light cameras in the area. Senator Gounardes sponsored a bill in June to quadruple the city’s red light camera program, which passed the State Senate.

Police have not released any additional information about the SUV’s driver. At a council meeting for the neighborhood’s 68th Precinct precinct last Wednesday, Commanding Officer Kristen Schafer said the case was “still under investigation.”

The post Bay Ridge rallies for family of local man killed in hit-and-run, GoFundMe raises over $6K first appeared on The Ocean Avenue News.

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What we know about the investigations surrounding New York City’s mayor

Post author By Mike Nova
Post date September 24, 2024

Nearly a year after FBI agents seized his phones, Adams faces an expanding constellation of federal inquiries involving his administration.

The post What we know about the investigations surrounding New York City’s mayor appeared first on Brooklyn Eagle.

The post What we know about the investigations surrounding New York City’s mayor first appeared on The Ocean Avenue News.

The post What we know about the investigations surrounding New York City’s mayor first appeared on The Brooklyn Times – The News And Times.

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Mayor Adams stands by cops involved in Brooklyn subway police shooting, chastises critics, following release of bodycam footage

Post author By Mike Nova
Post date September 24, 2024

Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday continued to praise two NYPD officers behind a police shooting on a Brooklyn subway platform last week that left four people, including one of the cops involved, injured.

Hizzoner also blasted those who have been critical of the officers’ actions following the release of body camera footage of the incident last Friday that somewhat contradicted the NYPD’s original narrative of how the incident unfolded.

The bodycam video shows that the two cops shot 37-year-old Derell Mickles multiple times after they pursued him on Sept. 15 for entering the Sutter Avenue subway station in Brooklyn without allegedly paying the $2.90 fare and refusing to drop a knife. But the incident also resulted in one of the officers and two bystanders getting shot, leaving one man — 49-year-old Gregory Delpeche — with brain damage.

Adams continued to broadly defend the officers’ handling of the incident during his weekly news conference on Tuesday and instead took aim at their critics.

“It is very easy to look back and look at the video, where you can hit pause, you can hit stop, you can hit delay, you can go and get something out of the kitchen and come back and look at it again. That’s not real life,” Adams said. “The person who had the knife ran towards the police officer, those officers, several times, attempted to say ‘drop the knife, drop the knife, drop the knife.’”

Police at scene of Brooklyn subway shooting — Police investigate a shooting at the Sutter Avenue station on the L line in Brooklyn on Sept. 15, 2024, that left four people, including a police officer, wounded.Photo by Dean Moses

While NYPD brass and the mayor have continued to insist that the officers showed “restraint” in only shooting Mickles when he charged at them — and after they failed to talk him down and subdue him using their Tasers — the edited body-camera video tells a slightly different story.

It shows that although Mickles did refuse to drop the knife and briefly charged at one of the officers, they shot him at a moment when he was standing still with his arms at his sides and his back against the train.

In light of the footage, police reform advocates have charged that Mickles did not pose a threat at the moment of the shooting, which, they argue, could have been avoided.

Mayor Adams speaks about subway shooting — “This is a person that has been arrested over 20 times that we could talk of,” Mayor Eric Adams said of the suspect at the center of the Sept. 15 police shooting in Brooklyn. “He had a clear mission to carry out a violent act. And I thank God that those officers took the necessary precautions.”Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office

Still, Mayor Adams insisted that the cops “did what they were trained to do” by using their tasers, which did not appear to have an effect on Mickles, before using their firearms. He added that they did their job by stopping Mickles, who has an extensive wrap sheet, from hurting anyone with the knife.

“This is a person that has been arrested over 20 times that we could talk of,” Adams said. “He had a clear mission to carry out a violent act. And I thank God that those officers took the necessary precautions.”

Mickles pleaded not guilty from his hospital bed on Friday morning to charges including attempted aggravated assault on a police officer, possession of a weapon and skipping his subway fare.

Backlash over the NYPD’s handling of the shooting has only intensified since the body camera footage was released.

Shortly after the video came out on Sept. 20, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams slammed the mayor’s comments that the officers handled the situation with restraint. He argued that Adams choosing to laud rather than condemn the officers’ handling of the situation amounts to poor leadership.

“He continues to fail when leadership is desperately needed and should be utterly ashamed of those comments,” Williams said in a statement. “Our police are often asked to do too much in difficult conditions. They need leaders who will be clear when something clearly went wrong. This was a blatant disregard for the life of this community, and officers growing ‘impatient’ is not a valid reason to use deadly force.”