CITYWIDE

REMAINS OF AIRPLANE STOWAWAY FOUND

The remains of a man attempting to sneak into the country were found yesterday by customs inspectors in the landing gear of a plane arriving at John F. Kennedy airport, officials said.

At about 7:30 yesterday morning, customs officials discovered the man’s body stowed away within the wheel well of an international flight, South African airlines Flight 203, which arrived in New York today from Johannesburg, South Africa. The plane made a pit stop in Dakar, Senegal, where the man is believed to have snuck aboard.

Around the same time the plane was arriving in New York, police officials in Nassau County said a woman in the town of South Floral Park, which is in the flight path of many airplanes, heard what police described as “a loud thump.” After walking into her backyard, the woman discovered the right thigh of the man, a body part that had been severed by the plane’s landing gear as it neared the airport.

While freezing temperatures make it virtually impossible for any stowaway to sneak into the country hiding within a wheel well, a spokesman for the Nassau County police department, Vincent Garcia, said there was a similar occurrence in 1997 when a man’s body fell out a wheel well and landed near a woman who was about to enter her car after eating at a popular seafood restaurant.

“It happens every once in awhile,” Mr. Garcia said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

POLICE TO HELP BUILDING DESIGNS CONFORM WITH SAFETY REQUIREMENTS

The New York City Police Department is playing a larger role in influencing building design to conform with counterterrorism safety requirements on large development projects and other potential targets that pose a substantive threat to public safety, the deputy chief of the counter terrorism bureau, John Colgan, said, at a City Council hearing yesterday.

Mr. Colgan stopped short of using the word “veto” to describe the police department’s authority in reviewing major project designs, but he said the department has now acquired a “full and equal voice at the table” and will provide threat assessment and recommend design changes. “We are not interested in militarizing the city of New York, and we are not interested in turning beautiful, sleek structures into fortresses,” said Mr. Colgan. “But we are interested in making safe structures.”

Council member Peter Vallone convened the hearing to address the delayed construction of the Freedom Towers in lower Manhattan, which was caused partially by late-surfacing security concerns voiced by the NYPD and subsequent design changes that will be revealed by developers next month. Mr. Vallone used the forum to attack Governor Pataki for “incompetence” in not yet beginning construction and for not working collaboratively with the NYPD.

– Special to the Sun

DOE TO ANALYZE TEST SCORES AS MEASURE OF SCHOOL PERFORMANCE

The New York City Department of Education will measure public school performance by analyzing increases and decreases in student test scores beginning September 2006, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said yesterday.

The current rating system relies only on students’ absolute achievement, so that changes in test scores often go unnoticed. Higher-achieving schools are not pushed to improve, and schools whose students are scoring below the proficient level are not rewarded for forward strides. The solution, said Mr. Klein, is to organize schools into clusters based on test scores for grades three through eight and graduation and year-to-year promotion rates in high schools. Using what Mr. Klein calls “gains analysis” in addition to absolute achievement, the department will assess schools based on their performance in relation to comparable schools.

The 2006 reforms will also make standardized test scores more precise. Instead of translating students’ raw scores into a scale score from one to four, administrators will examine the raw scores to avoid overlooking gains and losses that occur within each scale level. The department will actually visit schools to assess their learning environments and will use criteria such as student work, staff retention, and guidance resources to fill out each school’s profile.

– Special to the Sun

REPORT: CITY COULD FACE BUDGET GAP IF LABOR DISPUTE NOT RESOLVED

Despite record surpluses in fiscal 2005, the city will face budget gaps by 2007 if it does not resolve ongoing labor disputes with its teachers and the public employees union District Council 37, the state comptroller said in a report released yesterday. The report praised Mayor Bloomberg’s streamlining of city government but said much of the surplus will be dedicated to balancing the budget in 2006, with little left over for future years. Most of the $3.3 billion surplus the city will enjoy comes from an unexpected surge in real estate-related tax revenue, which was up 81.6% since 2004 and may be a one-time occurrence similar to the surge in tax revenue the city enjoyed from stock market-related gains in 2004. The report stated that “nondiscretionary” city spending – Medicaid, debt servicing, pension contributions, and health care costs – would continue to eat up a greater percentage of the city’s budget, heightening the need to resolve the city’s current impasse with certain labor unions. A wage increase for workers at the inflation rate alone would exceed the city’s reserve in 2006 through 2009, the report said.

– Special to the Sun

POLICE PUT OFFICER ON LEAVE AFTER HE ALLEGEDLY ABANDONS PARTNER

Pending the results of an internal investigation, the police department has placed a police officer on leave after he allegedly abandoned his wounded partner during a shootout in Brooklyn last week, officials said yesterday.

The officer, Gilberto Marrero, a 12-year-veteran, was allegedly captured on a video surveillance tape running away from his wounded partner, Patrick Caprice, who was struck by a gunman with three bullets. While all three shots had struck the officer’s bulletproof vest, a fracture of one bullet struck Mr. Caprice in the stomach, piercing his small intestine.

Mr. Caprice underwent immediate surgery and is expected to be released from Brookdale Hospital and Medical Center this morning, police officials said.

Meanwhile, his partner, Mr. Marrero, faces the prospect of dismissal if an internal review by the department’s Firearms Discharge Review board concludes that he deserted his wounded partner.

After the shooting, Mr. Marrero complained about getting sick. Officials recommended he turn in his service gun and stay home until the internal investigation is concluded.

The shootings evolved after the officers pursued an 18-year-old man after observing him purchase drugs and drop $15 worth of marijuana from the window of his car. The 18-year-old, David Redden, is believed to have committed suicide shortly after shooting the officer, police officials said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

QUEENS

WOMAN RAPED ON SUBWAY PLATFORM

Stepping off a subway train a little past 3 a.m. yesterday morning, a 21-year-old woman was approached by a man who raped her on the subway platform, police said.

It took only 32 seconds for police to respond to an internal alarm triggered by a token booth clerk, who heard a scream coming from the platform of the subway station, which is located along the ‘G’ line in Long Island City. The station was closed for several hours while police combed the area for evidence.

The woman was brought to a nearby hospital where she was listed in stable condition. The suspect is described as a light-skinned man, believed to be in his 20s, 5 feet 8 inches tall, 160 lbs., with short brown hair, brown eyes, and a moustache. He was last seen wearing a black or gray windbreaker with a zippered front, khaki cargo pants, and a military-style camouflage hat, police said.

Yesterday’s report of rape is the 12th in the area so far this year, an increase of more than 450% since 2004, when only two rapes were reported, according to police statistics. Police said the suspect didn’t fit into any sort of crime pattern for the area.

Citywide, police statistics show the number of reported rapes to have decreased by 8.8% this year, compared to 2004.

– Special to the Sun

STATEWIDE

SENATOR INVOKES KU KLUX KLAN TO CRITICIZE SCHUMER

The simmering Senate fight over judicial nominations took a twist yesterday as a Republican lawmaker accused Senator Schumer of comparing a black judge to the racist Ku Klux Klan.

The dust-up began when Mr. Schumer, a Democrat of N.Y., a leader in the Democrats’ fight against certain Bush picks for the federal bench, said on the Senate floor that nominee Janice Rogers Brown might want to claim extraordinary power as a federal appeals judge in the D.C. circuit.

“What does Janice Rogers Brown want to be nominated for? Dictator? Or grand exalted ruler?” Mr. Schumer said.

That prompted a stern response from Senator Sessions, a Republican of Alabama, who charged Mr. Schumer had compared Judge Brown to the racist Ku Klux Klan group. “To have it suggested that somehow her ideas are consistent with the Ku Klux Klan is really offensive to me,” said Mr. Sessions.

According to histories of the Ku Klux Klan, the group has had Grand Dragons, Grand Titans, Grand Klaliffs, a Grand Cyclops, and a Grand Wizard, but no “grand exalted ruler.”

– Associated Press