Daily Archives: June 21, 2019

ACS teens arrested for unconnected robberies

Administration for Children’s Services facility in Kips Bay (Photo via Google Maps)

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

Police arrested four teenagers on Saturday, June 15 at 9:14 a.m. for three separate robberies that took place outside the Administration for Children’s Services facility at 492 First Avenue last weekend.

One of the victims told police that he was standing outside the building around on Friday, June 14 around 11 p.m. when three boys approached him. One of the boys pulled what the victim said looked like a handgun out of his waistband and put it against the victim’s chest while saying, “Go buy me cigarettes, I’m not f—king playing.”

Police said that around midnight on Saturday, June 15, an 18-year-old girl approached a man who was standing outside the ACS facility and demanded his phone, then allegedly reached into the victim’s pockets. The victim said that another teen who was with the girl at the time said, “If you touch her, I’ll f—k you up.” The teens fled with his phone.

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GPBA honors cops killed in the line of duty

Family members and colleagues of fallen officers at the memorial event (Photos by Maria Rocha-Buschel)

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

The Gramercy Park Block Association honored the members of the NYPD that have been killed in the line of duty on Thursday, June 6. The memorial event at the National Arts Club has become an annual tradition that the organization has been carrying on since 2015.

The event stemmed from the Blue Lives Matter NYC movement started by three members of the NYPD after the murders of Detectives Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu in December 2014. The goal was to help families of the slain offers in their time of need and GPBA president Arlene Harrison joined with the organization the following year.

“It has now become a nationwide movement, and I have done everything I can to spread the word, by organizing a social media network of over 150 police groups around the country,” Harrison said of Blue Lives Matter.

Harrison explained that the GPBA was formed in 1993 after her 15-year-old son was beaten in Gramercy Park with a mission of protecting the neighborhood by working closely with the police department. The GPBA also organized a relief effort within the 13th Precinct for a number of months after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

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