Volume 16 • Issue 36 | February 06 – 12, 2004
Police blotter
Priest stops thief
An intruder in the Franciscan Priory of St. Anthony of Padua at 151 Thompson St. on Thurs. Jan. 29 fled without taking anything after a 73-year-old priest grappled with him, police said.
The Rev. Louis Troiano, 73, was distributing mail just before 1 p.m. when he saw the stranger coming out of a second floor bedroom.
Troiano isn’t the only priest there who knows how to take care of himself. The Rev. Emmanuel Farrone, 90, recalled that he was watching a noon televised mass in his room on the fourth floor when the intruder opened his door. “He ran when he saw me and that’s when he went downstairs where Father Louis was,” he said in a telephone interview. “It’s a lucky thing he ran away. I used to be a boxer – Golden Gloves – if I’d have caught him it would’ve been boom boom boom.”
It was not known how the intruder entered the building.
Cop dies in peddler chase
Sgt. Keith Ferguson, 38, a police force veteran of 17 years, collapsed and died of apparently natural causes in Soho on Sat. Jan. 3 1after chasing an unlicensed peddler of counterfeit goods, police said.
Ferguson, a member of an Emergency Service Unit that makes citywide antiterrorism patrols in a van, joined the foot chase that started when police spotted the suspect selling counterfeit merchandize on Lafayette and Grand Sts. After the suspect was apprehended at Grand St. and Broadway, Ferguson fell to the pavement unconscious. Fellow officers tried in vain to revive him and then took him to St. Vincent’s Hospital where he was declared dead at 2:40 p.m.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the cause of death was not known, but added that Ferguson, whose father is a retired police officer, had not been out ill for more than 10 years. Ferguson was said to be in good health and an accomplished swimmer and diver.
The vendor, Demba-Yero Sall, 43, of 1478 Bedford Ave., Brooklyn, was charged with resisting arrest, unlicensed vending and trademark counterfeiting.
Dance Center rip-off
A man walked into the Dance Space Center in Soho at 451 Broadway at 8:30 p.m. Sat. Jan. 31, picked up a patron’s bag off a hook and fled, police said.
Bag snatch
Two thieves came up behind a woman walking on Greene St. near Canal St. at about 10:35 p.m. Sat. Jan. 31, and one of them snatched her hand bag, passed it off to the other and both fled, police said. The bag had $40 in cash, a cell phone, credit cards and personal items.
Car trunk rifled
A woman who parked her 2002 Ford Taurus at 119 Mercer St. between Spring and Prince Sts. on Saturday night Jan. 31 returned at 11:30 p.m. and found her lap top computer, cell phone and clothing missing from the truck, police said.
Hotel heist
A man who walked into the Millenium Hilton Hotel at 55 Church St. at 8:45 a.m. Sun. Feb. 1 put his bag on the floor to speak to a hotel desk clerk returned a short time later to find the bag gone, police said. The victim told First Precinct police that the bag contained $500 in cash, personal checks, a camera and other electronic equipment.
Assault on Gold St.
A dispute that erupted between two strangers at 4:20 a.m. Sun. Feb. 1 in front of 33 Gold St. between Fulton and John Sts. ended when one of them hit the other on the forehead with a piece of pipe, police said. The assailant fled and victim was taken to NYU Downtown Hospital in stable condition.
—Albert Amateau
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