NYPD Detective accused of Pimping 13-Year-old

Detective Wayne Taylor, 35, a 14-year veteran of the New York Police Department's housing bureau had a second job: Pimp. He was arrested along with his girlfriend, 29-year-old Zelika Brown. They are accused of forcing a 13-year-old runaway to work as a prostitute at parties around the city. The criminal charges include: second-degree kidnapping, second- and third-degree promoting prostitution, third-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child. If convicted, each could face up to 25 years in prison. They were each being held on $250,000 bail. See the TV report here.

It all began when the 13-year-old ran away from her parent’s Brooklyn home on Jan. 10 and met with a person known as “Drama” who offered to get her into the business of dancing for money at parties. "Drama" introduced the girl to Zelika Brown who told the girl that she had bought her for $500 and that she had to work off the debt. Brown introduced the girl to detective Taylor as her husband. Even though the girl was only 13-years-old, Taylor told her to tell anyone who asked, that she was 19.

Both Taylor and Brown took the girl to a Queens barber shop where various men paid cash to be with her. Taylor instructed the girl on how much to charge the men: $40 for oral sex and $80 for intercourse. Another girl working that party, Krystal Tudy, 18, later told investigators that Brown put her to work and provided security for her and others in Brown's employ. Tudy and other prostitutes beat her for not making enough money at the barbershop party, with Taylor threatening to put her to work as a streetwalker and warning her that if she tried to flee, she would trip the house alarm. The girl lived at Brown's home at 173-37 Vaswani Avenue in Queens for about 17 days.

Between Jan 10 and Jan 27 the girl was forced to perform sexual acts with approximately 20 men who had paid Brown and Taylor to have sex with her. The girl eventually escaped to her family, who took her to a police precinct, police said.

"This case is every parent and every child's worst nightmare, made even more frightening by the fact that one of the defendants is a police officer who swore to uphold the law and the community he serves," District Attorney Richard A. Brown said in a statement. "The case will be vigorously prosecuted."

Taylor's lawyer, Peter Brill, told reporters his client "has a right to have the case proven against him beyond a reasonable doubt." Randall Unger, an attorney for Brown, said "It may turn out that there is a great deal of exaggeration in this case."

At the time of her arrest, Zelika Brown allegedly made statements to police that she was running a prostitution business and that the victim, Tudy and other women performed sex with men for money and that Taylor would “watch out” for her while the girls were prostituting themselves. Det. Wayne Taylor, 35, tried to distance himself from the allegations, telling investigators he only drove the teen -- and other girls and young women -- for his girlfriend's exotic dancer business, authorities said.

Police say Taylor joined the force in 1994. He was assigned to the Housing Bureau, and worked in the Bronx and in Queens. The detective was reportedly arrested during a police stakeout of his house. Sources say he left with two females, one identified as a prostitute and the other a madame. The three were allegedly en route to a party at a Holiday Inn in Queens. A police source says that the detective had previously been on modified duty after he was accused of using a department car to drive home after work. The same source referred to Taylor as "a bad, bad guy." The crimes Taylor is accused of occurred off-duty, police said. He likely faces termination and up to 25 years in prison.

Cops Shoot and Kill Cop

Off duty Mount Vernon Police Officer Christopher Ridley, 23, was in a desperate struggle with Anthony Jacobs, 39, a homeless man accused of violently assaulting another man. They were fighting for control of Ridley's 9mm handgun when, as Ridley finally had control of his weapon, four Westchester County police arrived on the scene and shot and killed their fellow police officer. Ten shots were fired, four or five of which hit officer Ridley.

The county cops involved were identified today as Detective Robin Martin, and officers Frank Oliveri, Jose Calero and Christian Gutierrez, who was a classmate of Ridley's at the county police academy. Westchester County Executive Andy Spano issued the following statement on the death of Christopher Ridley:

“This is a horrible tragedy for everyone. My heartfelt sympathy and prayers go to the family and friends of Officer Chris Ridley and his colleagues in the Mount Vernon Police Department. We are all devastated at the loss of this young police officer who had great potential. Officer Ridley was committed to protecting people in the city where he grew up. Acting in his capacity as a police officer, he was killed in this terrible chain of events. Our own County officers involved have been deeply traumatized and were distraught to learn that it was a fellow officer who was shot. They as well as the entire County Police force are shaken and saddened by this event. This has been particularly painful for the entire law enforcement community. County Police are cooperating in every way with the investigation, and we stand ready to provide any assistance to the family.’’

It all began when Ridley attempted to arrest Anthony Jacobs who had just assaulted another man. Sources told The Journal News that Jacobs fought with Ridley when he realized he was being arrested and that during the struggle Ridley's gun fell to the ground. Both men grabbed at the weapon, which went off twice before Ridley managed to throw Jacobs to the ground and retrieve the gun. He was pointing the weapon at Jacobs when four county police officers fired 10 shots, hitting Ridley four or five times.

One witness, Robert Connolly, said Ridley "was grappling with the other guy, the gun went off and he was still holding it when the (Westchester County ) cops came and shot him. They had no way to know (Ridley) was a cop."

There is some confusion as to whether the cops told Ridley to put down his gun before shooting him. Connolly said he did not hear the county officers say anything before they began shooting. Another witness, however, said the county police did yell at Ridley to drop the gun.

"The cops were standing across the street at the time,'' said Holly Savage of Port Chester, who was waiting to catch a bus home when the drama unfolded. "They were across from the incident. I don't think (Ridley) could hear them."

Daniel Jackson, the city's deputy public safety commissioner, had little to say about witness accounts or details of what happened, saying that "we're doing our best to ensure that this is being done objectively and thoroughly and that the integrity of the investigation is not compromised." Jackson said police have interviewed more than 40 witnesses, are analyzing video from surveillance cameras mounted on buildings in the area and having ballistics tests done on all weapons used in the incident. He said an autopsy has been completed by the county Medical Examiner's Office, but would not release preliminary findings. He also would not say whether any of the county police involved in the shooting have given statements or been interviewed by White Plains detectives.

Defense attorney John Grant represents Officer Jose Calero, 35, who joined the county's police department eight months ago. Grant declined to comment on the circumstances leading up to the shooting that killed 23-year-old Officer Christopher Ridley, but said he believed the investigation would not result in any charges against his client or Detective Robin Martin or Officers Frank Oliveri or Christian Gutierrez. Grant said that his client is "very distressed" about Ridley's death and that all four officers are grieving for their dead colleague.

"When all the information is available and the evidence is present, I think everybody will see that this was just a horrible tragedy and that there's really no wrongdoing on anybody's part," he said. "In time, when everything is laid bare, everyone will understand what took place and why. It's going to confirm that nobody did anything wrong. There's no culpability on the part of any of the officers at all."

F. Hollis Griffin, detective Robin Martin's lawyer, would not comment on his client's role in the shooting. He said that he believed the county officers did tell Ridley to drop his gun. "He's very upset. It was a very disturbing circumstance that he was presented with," Griffin said of Martin, who lives in Mount Vernon and was an acquaintance of Stanley Ridley, the dead officer's father.

"I think it was a terrible accident. It was a tragedy," Griffin said.

Meanwhile, in Mount Vernon, Police Commissioner David Chong announced that Ridley was being posthumously promoted to the rank of detective. Commissioner Chong traced the time from January 2006 to the present at which P.O. Christopher A. Ridley first joined the force receiving Mount Vernon Police Officer Shield # 2174 to today, January 29, 2008, when he would posthumously receive Mount Vernon Detective Shield #11, the shield that would this day be retired, never to be used again “in honor of a man; our brother, our friend.” To wit, Commissioner Chong would add, “Let’s not forget that Detective Christopher A. Ridley died a hero."

In the background would stir the gut-wrenching sorrowful notes only bagpipes could evoke at times of such solemnity. The process of the bagpipe players, flanked by the honor guard who would present the gold Detective’s Shield unleashed a torrent of tears that welled from the heart, rushing down cheeks as Reverend Dixon blessed the badge, and then presented it to the Ridley Family. Reverend Dixon was able to gather all in the chamber together by asking everyone to hold hands as he spoke.

He would first “thank the Ridley family for giving us a son, who would become a man, who would bring the City of Mount Vernon together as never before. Christopher Ridley is a symbol," the Reverend Ridley said, "a torch of guidance for better things to come.”

Shortly after the shooting, Anthony Jacobs, 39, who lives at a county homeless shelter in Mount Pleasant, was arrested on felony charges of second-degree assault and second-degree possession of a weapon. Court papers released after his arraignment in White Plains City Court today say that he's accused of punching and kicking an unidentified 58-year-old man, "causing serious physical injury, including two broken wrists and two broken ribs," along with multiple bruises. The complaint also notes that he "forcefully wrestled control" of Ridley's loaded gun while he was trying to arrest Jacobs. Police have not identified the victim of Jacobs' alleged assault, but said he lives in the Bronx and was on his way home from work when he was attacked.

Jacobs, his hand bandaged, did not speak or enter a plea during his brief arraignment in White Plains City Court today. He is being held without bail at the county jail and is due back in court Monday. His lawyer, Arlene Popkin, said Jacobs gave police two videotaped statements about the incident. She had no comment after his court appearance.

According to the Rev. W. Franklyn Richardson, pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, Christopher Ridley served as a youth mentor at Grace Baptist. In Mount Vernon, where drugs, gangs and violence have claimed many young lives, Officer Ridley would spend time telling teenage boys that “there are rewards to those who make the right decisions,” one of the church’s ushers said.

“He was concerned about our young in the community and he wanted to get together to talk about his ideas of what could be done to help them,” said Mount Vernon’s mayor, Clinton I. Young.

Officer Ridley was born in Mount Vernon and moved to Voorhees, N.J., with his mother, Felita Bouché, after she and his father divorced when he was 5. Twelve years later, he returned to Mount Vernon and enrolled at Westchester Community College. His dream “was always to be a police officer,” a cousin, Danielle Scholar, said. On the day Officer Ridley graduated from the Police Academy, he visited the church to show off his new uniform.

“He was so proud,” Mr. Richardson recalled in an interview. “He was a role model.”

**Detective Christopher Ridley was the first police officer in Mount Vernon killed in the line of duty since 1974.**

Man Wakes Up --- At His Own Wake!

I guess the moral of the story below could be: Don't rush to judgment. Feliberto Carrasco was given up for dead before his miraculous recovery........

An 81-year old man in the small Chilean village of Angol shocked his grieving relatives by waking up in his coffin at his own wake, local media said on Sunday. When Feliberto Carrasco's family members discovered his body limp and cold, they were convinced that the octogenarian's hour had come, so they immediately called a funeral home, not a doctor.

Carrasco was dressed in his finest suit for the wake, and his relatives gathered to bid him a final farewell.

"I couldn't believe it. I thought I must be mistaken, and I shut my eyes," Carrasco's nephew Pedro told the daily Ultimas Noticias.

"When I opened them again, my uncle was looking at me. I started to cry and ran to get something to open up the coffin to get him out."

The man who "rose from the dead" said he was not in any pain, and only asked for a glass of water. Local radio also surprised listeners by announcing a correction to Carrasco's death announcement, saying the news had been premature.

The Library of Congress Needs Your Help

Have you ever looked at some old family album and wondered who are these people? Maybe a long-lost cousin or a forgotten family friend. Did you ever wonder how old is this picture anyway? If you are lucky there may be some information scribbled on the back. If not maybe you could ask grandma or uncle. Old analog cameras were incapable of recording time/date stamps and sometimes people would write on the back of old photographs the particulars.....but often there would be no information. Just recently my mother sent me an old black and white picture (remember those??) of my dad and his brothers when he was a boy. I had to ask her to identify each person in the picture...even my own Dad!!

Today most cameras are capable of record meta data, detailing the time, date and even location of a picture. We have online services like FLICKR where photos can be uploaded and shared. Tagging is a common feature where anyone can add information to a photo. We have come a long way since the early days of photography.

However there are literally millions of unidentified photos, whose information has been lost with the passage of time. The Library of Congress has thousands of historical photos that it needs help with. It is appealing to FLICKR users to help identify, tag and make pertinent comments. It is hoping that people will add valuable information that might otherwise be impossible for it to find. The pictures, which are stunning in their quality, were taken from the early to mid 1900s, and the subjects range from baseball players to Rosie the Riveter types during World War II.

These photos can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/Library_of_Congress.

Even if you can't help identify or provide more information about these pictures, take a look anyway. It is a window on a past era that reminds us of what it was like back then.

5 Year-Old Boy Handcuffed

Dennis Rivera, 5, a kindergartener at a PS 81 in Queens was handcuffed by a school safety agent and taken to Elmhurst Hospital by EMS, for a psychiatric evaluation. His mother, Jasmina Vazquez, was livid. She is demanding answers for the brutal way the school handled her child.

"I think it was excessive force. It was unnecessary what they did to my son," she said.

5 year-old Dennis suffers from asthma, has speech problems, and may have attention deficit disorder. The incident happened on Jan. 17 around 11 a.m., when the boy allegedly threw a tantrum:

The police report says the child was "punching his teacher and swinging wildly at school aides, that he smacked the assistant principal in the face, ran into a corner, and began to throw things on the floor."

He was taken to the principal's office and while there he apparently knocked items off of a desk. Rather than calling the boy's parents, a school safety agent cuffed the boy's small hands behind his back using metal restraints, the school source said. The agent and school officials then called an ambulance to take the tot to Elmhurst Hospital Center for a mental evaluation.

Vasquez was stunned when a guidance counselor called her at work to say her son was being taken to the psych ward. She rushed to the school from her job as a patient representative at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. On the way, she called Dennis' baby-sitter, who was closer to PS 81, and asked her to hurry over to the school. When baby-sitter Sandy Ortiz arrived, Dennis was still handcuffed, she said. School safety agents also were holding his elbows even though the boy was calm, Ortiz said. Dennis is about 4-feet-3 and weighs 68 pounds.

"I hugged him. I said, 'OK, release the cuffs, I'm taking him,'" she recalled. "They told me, 'No, Miss. You're not taking him anywhere.' I was so upset. There's no reason to handcuff a baby of 5 years old, traumatize him that way," she said.

The handcuffs were removed before Dennis was walked out of the school and driven by ambulance to Elmhurst Hospital Center. He was evaluated at the hospital and released about four hours later. Vasquez immediately withdrew Dennis from PS 81 and enrolled him in a private school, Grand Street Settlement.

The Department of Education is investigating, as are the police who are responsible for school safety agents.

"The reality is something had to be done," said Gregory Floyd of the City Employees Union, which represents the school safety officer. Floyd said cuffing the child was the last resort.

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New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein said cases like Rivera's involve judgment calls.

"I find it troubling when you see a young kid in handcuffs, it's got to bother you," he said.

As troubling as this story is, it is not the first time a 5 year-old had been handcuffed at school.

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"The situation with school discipline is out of control," said Donna Lieberman, Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Lieberman said the incident is another example of what the union calls the "criminalization of the classroom."

"There's something fundamentally wrong when school safety agents are handcuffing a kid who is 5-years-old for having a tantrum," she said.