1 Hurt in Queens School Bus Crash

One person was hurt in an accident involving a school bus and a car in Queens Monday morning, authorities said.

The school bus and car collided on the westbound side of the Grand Central Parkway near Astoria Boulevard shortly before 6:30 a.m. 

The victim's injuries were considered non-life threatening, the FDNY said. 

It wasn't clear if there were children aboard the yellow school bus.

Chopper 4 captured an extensive emergency presence at the scene as smoke wafted up around the bus and firefighters directed traffic past the accident.

Photo Credit: NBCNewYork

Second Fire in Two Days Breaks Out in Fulton Street Building

FINANCIAL DISTRICT — A huge fire broke out in a mixed-used building on Fulton Street early Monday morning, just a day after another blaze burned at the same building, an FDNY spokesman said.

Fire officials received the call for the second blaze in 140 Fulton St., at 1:55 a.m. It grew into a three-alarm fire, but was under control by 5:20 a.m., FDNY said.

One firefighter sustained minor injuries, officials said.

About 7 a.m. on Sunday, a four alarm fire broke out at the five-story building near Nassau Street, the FDNY spokesman said. It was brought under control by 9:38 a.m. and three firefighters received minor injuries, officials said. 

The FDNY used 168 firefighters to tackle the first blaze.

Fire officials said that the rood of the building had collapsed in the rear because of Sunday morning's fire.

The collapse has made it unsafe to enter the building, said Battalion Chief Mark Rosenbaum.

"We've basically been trying to extinguish it from the outside," said Rosenbaum. "So it's just a long, tedious process of pouring water from different angles."

Hundreds of firefighters have responded to the two blazes over 30 hours, he added.

"We had it under control yesterday at about 12 o'clock [p.m.]. It's not going anywhere. We just can't get final extinguishment of it," he said.

Both fires are under investigation, the spokesman said.

By DNAinfo

Bronx Fire Kills Girl, 7, Girl, 3, in Critical Condition

A 7-year-old girl was killed and a 3-year-old girl is in critical condition after a fire ripped through an apartment in the Bronx early Sunday morning.
 
Authorities responded to the fire on Grant Avenue in Fleetwood-Concourse Village at about 3 a.m. Police say the children were pulled from the smoldering fire unconscious and transported to Lincoln Medical Center.
 
The 7-year-old was pronounced dead at the hospital. The 3-year-old child remains in critical condition.
 
The identities of the children were not released.

The fire marshal is investigating the cause of the fire.

Protesters Dwindle as Police Presence Grows at Vigil for Kimani Gray

BROOKLYN — A small crowd of demonstrators gathered at a candlelight vigil on the corner of East 55^th Street and Church Avenue in East Flatbush on Saturday, in an ongoing protest over the death of Kimani Gray, the 16-year-old boy fatally shot by police officers one week earlier, after he allegedly pointed a gun at them.

Following five nights of vigils for Gray,some of them drawing more than three times as many people, the crowd of nearly 50 demonstrators marched to the 67th Precinct after nearly two hours at the nightly protest.

Hundreds of police officers, however, filled the streets surrounding Saturday's evening demonstration, which began at 7 p.m.

"People were chanting," demonstrator Lisa Knauer, a 56-year-old professor of anthropology at UMass Dartmouth, said of the scene at the precinct. "The corner was barricaded off. We were across the street from the precinct. People were giving impromptu speeches."

On the way to the police station, the demonstrators stopped at the East 52nd Street house in front of which Gray was shot, and paused again at the intersection where 23-year-old Shantel Davis was allegedly shot and killed by police after crashing a stolen car in June of 2012.

Cops on horses, motorcycles and even posted on top of a building across the street, surrounded the protesters at the vigil, and gates built for a much larger crowd penned in the protesters for several blocks.

"As I biked over here from East 16th Street, I counted at least one police car per block — 40 police cars," Knauer said.

"I don't know if it means they're afraid of the community. It certainly makes me feel criminalized."

An NYPD spokesman said on Sunday he could not say how many officers had been assigned to the vigil site for Saturday's protest.

There have been several attacks on police officers following the Gray shooting.

On Wednesday night, a protestor smashed an officer's face with a brick, according to the New York Post and New York Times. Monday night, some demonstrators allegedly threw bottles at cops, after vandalizing and robbing a Rite Aid.

Activist Fatimah Shakur, 29, feels the police response to the violence at the vigils has been unjustly harsh.

"They're not playing fair," Shakur said. "They're not respecting our constitutional right to protest. That's not cool."

Among the crowd of demonstrators at Saturday's vigil was 14-year-old friend of Gray's, Nia Denerville, who remembers him as "a good boy."

"It's so sad he had to go like that for no reason," Denerville said.

DNAinfo

Police Hunt for Suspects as Man Shot in Head Clings to Life

PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS — A 60-year-old man was shot in the head early Friday after leaving a deli, and police are hunting for four men who were seen just moments beforehand standing in line behind him, cops said.

The victim, who was in critical condition at Kings County Hospital on Saturday, had left the deli at Lincoln Road and Flatbush Avenue at 2:40 p.m. and was followed by four young men who showed up moments afterwards, police said.

One of the men, described as 25 to 30 years of age with a beard and mustache, shot the victim in the head and fled the location, police said.

The suspect was last seen wearing a black-and-grey striped hoodie, black jeans, and black-and-white sneakers, cops said.

The other men shown in a video released by police are also wanted in the incident, police said. A second man was described as in his 20s, and was seen wearing a white Adidas shirt, and black-and-white sneakers, police said.

The third man was wearing a black-and-red plaid jacket with white sneakers, police said, and the fourth man wore a grey hooded sweatshirt with white-and-black sneakers, police said. 

Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call Crime Stoppers at1-800-577-TIPS (8477). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website or by texting information to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577.

NY - PBA chief says no to cameras for catching speeding drivers

The PBA wants to slam the brakes on using cameras to catch speeders.

The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association said Friday it’s urging lawmakers to reject the legislation pushed by the Bloomberg administration for the new devices.

“Speed cameras are no substitute for live policing,” PBA President Patrick Lynch told the the Daily News.

He said the cameras would allow drivers who are drunk, carrying weapons and fleeing crimes to “slip by.”

The cameras record the speed of passing vehicles. The Bloomberg administration wants to test using 20 of them in school zones. Tickets would be issued automatically.

Political momentum had been growing behind the proposal, which was included in an Assembly budget bill adopted this week.

But the PBA’s arguments have found a sympathetic ear in the more conservative state Senate. Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn) predicted the upper chamber would not go along.

“What we need are the actual police officers on the street,” he said. “Cops on the street are what slows people down.”

Man Fatally Struck by Subway Train at Times Square

TIMES SQUARE — A man in his 40s was found dead inside the Times Square subway station after an oncoming N train struck him, police said.

The southbound N train at Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street hit the man, who was unidentified, at 8:17 a.m., police said.

According to witnesses, it appeared that the man jumped in the way of the oncoming train, cops said.

An investigation was ongoing.