Police News Roundup.
Three cheers for Mayor Mike! Mayor Bloomberg is sponsoring a plan to sharply reduce the amount of money those who do business with the city can contribute to political campaigns. The proposal will limit contributions to $250 and, more importantly, eliminate public matching funds for such contributions. Base10 thinks this is a great idea. Under the current system, those campaigning for office can get four-to-one matching funds for every dollar they receive. There is no reason the taxpayer should pay four times the amount some lobbyist is giving a politician to get a contract.

New York City was alerted to the possibility of a "gas utility" bomb threat as outlined by federal authorities as justification for the detention of Jose Padilla. The Department noted it was told of the threat back in January.

Two fifteen year-old girls who initially claimed to have been gang raped in Central Park yesterday by a group of strangers, changed their story. The girls now say the attacks occurred in a Bronx apartment and they were attacked by young men they know.

Police are looking for the man who shot Monica Meadows, an up and coming model and actress on the uptown W train yesterday. The perpetrator is described as scruffy-looking with a medium build. The victim was struck in the shoulder and is recovering.

ABC News has an interesting story about tours being given at Governors Island in the harbor. The Island has an interesting history and has been closed to the public for more than two hundred years.

Heroes:

• Taxpayers for Common Sense, a fiscal watchdog group that points out that the Governor Pataki backed highway project to rebuild West Street is one of the most wasteful projects of its kind in the country. They point out that the Gov's plan would cost $860 million dollars for a four block tunnel while there is an alternative plan that would cost a mere $175 million.
  
• The manager of a Pennsylvania check-cashing store who was tied up in a robbery but managed to free her foot and dial 911 with her toes.

Goats:

• Carlton McNish, the Pennsylvania man who invented a dead wife to scam charities out of $100,000 in benefits deriving from 9/11.
  
• Pearl Campbell, a home health care worker who was arrested for abusing an 88 year-old patient on Long Island.
  
• Lemrick Nelson, who is to be released from prison today after serving 13 years for civil rights violations resulting from Nelson's fatal stabbing of Yankel Rosenbaum.

And finally, in the "band of bunnies" department, three New Hampshire women who dressed as mall Easter Bunnies for photos with children have been arrested for stealing thousands of dollars from their photo studio employer. The three even disabled a nearby ATM so clients would have to pay in cash. Base10 thinks this crime is pretty "hare"'y.
- posted by Base10 @ 9:43 AM