CITYWIDE

COUNCIL PROPOSES COMMITTEE TO REVIEW CHILD DEATHS

The City Council is expected to introduce a bill today to create a committee that would review the death of every child in the city.

The committee, or so-called independent child fatality review advisory team, would include representatives from both city agencies and child advocacy groups.

Ten states and several cities nationwide already have similar models in place.

“They have provided in those states and cities an invaluable tool to help identify what is causing children to die,” Council Member Christine Quinn, chairwoman of the council’s health committee and the lead sponsor of the bill, told reporters outside City Hall yesterday.

The proposed legislation comes in the wake of the death of 6-month-old Matthew Perilli at a daycare center in Queens. He was suffocated under a pile of toys that other children had piled into his crib. A subsequent investigation by the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found widespread problems with the inspection and licensing system.

Last week, the city’s Administration for Children’s Service found that 58 children between the ages of 14 days and 16 years died in the first nine months of 2004, compared with 37 at the same time last year.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

KLEIN ANNOUNCES HIGH SCHOOL APPLICATION PROCESS

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein kicked off the public high school application process yesterday by announcing a series of school fairs and releasing a directory of the city’s 300-plus high schools.

The 500-page directory offers a snapshot of each high school, but unless students run across Appendix C, they won’t know which schools aren’t meeting academic standards. Nowhere in the book will they find information about which schools send children to good colleges or which are the most dangerous. Education officials said yesterday families should look at school report cards online to find more information.

The chancellor also said parents should “ask the hard questions” at parent workshops and school fairs. By December 9, the city’s approximately 100,000 eighth-graders are required to pick their top 12 choices from 300 in the book. This is the second year when all rising high school students have to fill out applications, even if they want to go to their zoned high school.

“We don’t want people getting into high school based on whom you know, or based on your ability to find some connection to a school,” Mr. Klein said. “We rebuilt the process to ensure that the playing field is leveled.”

He and other education officials said the process would be smoother this year, since the Department of Education has one year of experience under its belt. Critics predicted plenty of bumps on the road toward high school admissions.

The public advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, said last year the new process created “chaos and confusion” for students. She also said, “It is unfortunate that the DOE is again using a system that they know did not work for nearly 20,000 students.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

RX TRAIN PICKS UP N.Y. PASSENGERS; COUNCIL REVIEWS BILL

A train on its way to Toronto arrived at Penn Station yesterday to carry about two dozen East Coast passengers who were protesting the cost of prescription drugs. The train, called the “Rx Express,” was traveling from Miami to Toronto to buy drugs at cheaper prices than offered here. The non-partisan Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights sponsored the train trip.

The arrival of the train yesterday morning coincided with the review of a City Council bill to create a Web site allowing New Yorkers to compare prices at every pharmacy in the city, in the hopes that competition would help lower costs.

The bill calls for publicizing online the prices of 150 of the most used prescription drugs at each of the city’s roughly 2,000 drug stores. Information would also be available by calling 311. According to the Council investigation, drug prices in New York state are the nation’s fourth highest. The Council hopes that spelling out price discrepancies will encourage shoppers to compare prices, thus forcing pharmacies to bring down costs.

Passengers are scheduled to arrive in Toronto tonight, where they will see a Canadian doctor and buy as much as a three-month supply of drugs.

– Special to the Sun

MANHATTAN

CONGRESS REVIVES CLINTON-SUPPORTED 9/11 COUNSELING MEASURE

Congress has added another chapter to the strange tale of political gamesmanship around an obscure post-September 11 program, reviving a funding measure that Senator Clinton of New York had favored but the governor and mayor opposed.

The Democratic senator found herself suddenly at odds with city and state officials last month over a $4.45 million funding measure for Project Liberty, which provides counseling for September 11 rescue workers. Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg, both Republicans, went against her amendment, saying they would pay for the program themselves.

Mrs. Clinton later said the city first worked with her to get the amendment passed in the Senate but then inexplicably reversed course and came out against it. She compared the sequence of events to the “Alice in Wonderland” fairy tale.

Rushing to complete their legislative work before going home to campaign for re-election, members of Congress quietly reinserted the Project Liberty funding language into a homeland security spending bill late last week.

“Given the budgetary constraints on the state and city, I hope New York’s leaders will welcome these funds with open arms,” Mrs. Clinton said yesterday in a statement.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

MTA OFFICER ARRAIGNED IN BEATING OF HOMELESS MAN

An MTA police officer was arraigned yesterday at Manhattan Criminal Court for beating a homeless man at Penn Station earlier this year, and an MTA sergeant was arraigned for trying to cover up the assault, according to the office of Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

Police Officer Michael Koenig, 34, is accused of clubbing Maurice Cherry with his nightstick on January 18. Sergeant Joseph Camean, 27, is accused of failing to report the assault, according to the DA.

“There was absolutely no justification for this assault,” said Assistant District Attorney Andrew Heffner, who is chief of the Official Corruption Unit. “According to witnesses, the suspect was doing nothing at this time except resisting the assault, and the victim went into a fetal position after the officer struck him.”

Officer Koenig and other officers were in the process of ejecting Mr. Cherry from the station and had taken him outside, when Officer Koenig got into a verbal dispute with Mr. Cherry and allegedly beat him in the head with his nightstick. Mr. Cherry did not resist the attack and received three stitches to the head, Mr. Heffner said.

An attorney representing Officer Koenig, Marvyn Kornberg, said his client “never committed the acts that he’s been charged with.” Both defendants pleaded not guilty and were released without bail.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

FOUR TEENAGERS CHARGED WITH QUEENS MURDER

Four suspects, three of them teenagers, were charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of another man in a fight over drugs at Rockaway, Queens.

The suspects were all arrested Monday night in the vicinity of Beach 84th Street and Beach Channel Drive, where 30-year-old Gregory Wooten of Brooklyn was stabbed twice in the torso just after 11 p.m., police said.

Police arrested 22-year-old Kyle Jardine of Harrisburg.; 17-year-old Jonathan Baird of Brooklyn; 17-year-old Brandon Parrault of Brooklyn, and a 15-year-old boy whose name was withheld because he is a minor. Police said two of the suspects were arrested at the scene of the murder, while two others were arrested in a nearby car, which contained three knives, a machete, and plastic bags.

The suspects are accused of getting into a drug-related dispute with Wooten in their car. When Wooten stepped out of the car, he was beaten and stabbed by the suspects, police said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

THREE ARRESTED IN FATAL STABBING OVER ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP

A man and two teenage girls were arrested in the fatal stabbing of a teenage girl in a dispute over a two-timing boyfriend.

Tiffany Pelez, who is 16 and lives in Flushing, was charged with murder for allegedly stabbing 15-year-old Frances Hynds of College Point around 6 p.m. Monday at Linden Place.

Police responding to the dispute found Hynds lying in the street. She was taken to New York Hospital Queens, where she was pronounced dead within an hour. Ms. Pelez was also treated at the hospital.

“Apparently it was over a romantic relationship with a young man,” said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly during a press conference yesterday.

Hannah Vanfleet, 16, and Raymond Almodouar, 20, both of Flushing, were charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon for allegedly participating in the stabbing. Initial police reports said Hynds slashed Ms. Pelez in the face with a box cutter. Then, Ms. Vanfleet allegedly passed a knife to Ms. Pelez, who is accused of plunging the knife into Hynds’s chest.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun