CITYWIDE

COUNCIL HOLDS HEARINGS ON SCHOOL SAFETY

At a Manhattan high school, a boy was punched in the face for no reason. At a Bronx high school, school safety agents sprayed children with Mace. At a Brooklyn elementary school, a student was attacked and verbally abused and came home with bruises and torn clothes.

These were stories told by students, parents, and teachers at part one of a City Council hearing on school safety yesterday evening. The second part of the hearing is today at the council’s chambers.

The chairwoman of the council’s Committee on Education, Eva Moskowitz, said she called the hearing because, “From the point of view of the customers of the school system … there’s nothing more important than the safety of your child.”

She said she regularly receives complaints from parents who say classes are being interrupted by discipline problems.

The most surprising testimony came from two students who attend Teaching and Professions High School, a small school within Walton High School in the Bronx. They said school safety agents throw stink bombs and use mace and pepper spray to disperse crowds in the hallways and break up fights. But, one of the students said the tactics don’t stop the violence and disruption. Keith Manning, 16, said a friend was hit so hard in the mouth by another student that he had to get his jaw rewired.

A spokesman for the education department, Keith Kalb, said that was the first time the department had heard about agents using stink bombs in schools, and said it is not standard practice. He said the department would investigate.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

COUNCIL MEMBERS TRAVEL TO DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Fourteen members of the City Council are traveling to the Dominican Republic today to discuss deportation problems and economic development initiatives with Dominican officials. The group, which includes the City Council speaker Gifford Miller – who is also a candidate for mayor – will meet with officials from the police department, the district attorney’s office, and the mayor. The council recently passed a resolution urging the state Legislature to require courts to inform immigrant defendants that entering a guilty plea could result in their deportation. A spokesman for Mr. Miller, Stephen Sigmund, said the group also would be discussing ways to promote tourism between the Dominican Republican, which has one of the largest immigrant populations in New York, and the city.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

GUILTY PLEA IN CASE OF STOLEN NIGHT VISION GOGGLES

A Long Island man who allegedly stole four sets of night vision lenses and shipped them to Iran pleaded guilty yesterday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Erik Kyriacou of North Babylon stole the four Astroscope night vision lenses from the New York offices of NBC News, where he once was employed part-time. The devices allow a video camera to capture clear images in the dark.

Kyriacou was indicted last May on two counts of exporting technology to Iran without a license, one count of interstate transportation of stolen property, and one count of making a false statement. He pleaded guilty to all four counts.

“These lenses may seem relatively innocuous to the average observer, but in the wrong hands, they could help adversaries monitor American troops at night and conduct other surveillance,” said Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent-in-Charge William Reid.

– Special to the Sun

MANHATTAN

NEW RULING IN CASE OF ETAN PATZ

A Manhattan judge has ordered an imprisoned child molester and former mental patient to pay $2 million to the family of Etan Patz, the 6-year-old boy whose 1979 disappearance and presumed death he was found to have caused.

State Supreme Court Justice Barbara Kapnick had declared in May 2004 that Jose R. Ramos was responsible for the boy’s death after he ignored orders to answer deposition questions under oath for a lawyer who represented Etan’s parents. A lawyer for Stanley and Julia Patz, Brian O’Dwyer, had tried unsuccessfully to interview Ramos at the Pennsylvania prison where he is serving a 20-year sentence for the sexual abuse of an 8-year-old boy.

In a decision made public yesterday, the judge ordered Ramos to pay $1.5 million for Etan’s abduction and physical abuse and for obstruction of justice, and $500,000 for the boy’s wrongful death and his parents’ loss of his comfort and society. Mr. O’Dwyer said Ramos, who apparently has no assets, was saying he planned to eventually cash in on his notoriety by selling his story.

– Associated Press

WORKERS BEGIN ERECTING ‘THE GATES’

Final preparations to transform 23 miles of Central Park’s winding footpaths into a visual golden river got under way yesterday as workers began erecting gates that will be topped with luminous saffron-colored fabric for a 16-day public art project by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Like neighbors at a modern-day barn raising, some 75 teams of eight workers each began assembling the gates, lifting them onto steel plates, and bolting them in place. The temporary installation, “The Gates, Central Park, New York, 1979-2005,” opens Saturday, weather permitting, with the unfurling of the billowy fabric.

“Everybody knows what to do, right?” said Jason Huff, a recent graduate of the University of Georgia who was leading a team near Bethesda Fountain. “First one up! High fives, guys!”

The husband-and-wife artists unexpectedly jumped out of a car on the East Drive around 90th Street to greet a group of schoolchildren. “Know why we’re doing this?” Jeanne-Claude asked the children. “They are a work of art, and a work of art is for nothing. Only a work of art, for joy and beauty.”

– Associated Press

ALBANY

RAISES RECOMMENDED FOR JUDGES

State court judges who have gone six years without raises should get a substantial salary increase this year, the state’s chief judge said yesterday. Judge Judith Kaye also said she will ask the state Legislature and Governor Pataki to establish a new way of setting judges’ salary increases – tying them to a cost-of-living index, for instance, or having an independent commission set the increases – instead of the infrequent judicial pay bills approved by the governor and lawmakers.

“We would like to find some mechanism so that we don’t have to come hat in hand every six or eight years,” Judge Kaye said. Before the 1999 pay increases, state judges last received a salary hike in 1991.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

THREE TEENAGERS INDICTED IN ATTACK

Three 19-year-olds were indicted yesterday in a Queens court on charges of assault and criminal possession of a weapon. Law enforcement sources said that following an argument December 3, Gavin McFarlane, Martain Miller, and Andrew Maxwell attacked 15-year-old Kemar Folkes in a stairwell at Springfield Gardens High School. The group surrounded the boy and threatened him with a kitchen knife. While Mr. McFarlane blocked the exit and Mr. Maxwell shouted encouragements, Mr. Miller stabbed Mr. Folkes twice in the left shoulder and once in the left side with the knife, according to law enforcement officials. Mr. Folkes still suffers pain and numbness in his left leg after the attack, which left him with permanent nerve damage.

– Special to the Sun

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