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The Nostrand Avenue building where Sergeny Mamontov chopped up his roommate, Aleksandr Zilbergleyt. Source: Google Maps

A Brooklyn jury took only 15 minutes to convict Sergey Mamontov of brutally murdering his Sheepshead Bay roommate, Aleksandr Zilbergleyt, according to a report by the New York Daily News. The two shared an apartment at 3395 Nostrand Avenue between Avenue T and Avenue U.

The actions of Mamontov, explained in graphic detail to a jury last week, were so horrible that one juror admitted to needing psychiatric assistance after being subjected to the evidence.

“I’m going to see a shrink right now,” a shaken 62-year-old juror told the Daily News after the panel found Sergey Mamonov guilty of murder.

“It was just torture,” the retired woman said of seeing the graphic and gruesome evidence at trial. “I didn’t sleep at all last night.”

While the 50-year-old Mamontov admitted that he and Zilbergleyt had problems, Mamontov claimed that Zilbergleyt died accidentally. Not trusting the police, Mamontov went about disposing the corpse himself by cutting Zilbergleyt’s body into thousands of pieces, storing them in bleach bottles and putting the brain through a meat grinder.

Mamontov would have been successful in getting away with his crimes if he hadn’t confessed them to a friend.

Jurors refused to buy Mamontov’s defense that his actions resulted because of an accident.

“He had no remorse for anything. He didn’t even say sorry,” a 56-year-old male juror told the Daily News. “It brings you to understand how cruel a human can be.”

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CompStat reports are produced by the New York Police Department on a weekly basis. We summarize the week’s statistics for the 61st Precinct reports every Friday. The 61st Precinct is the police command responsible for Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, Kings Highway, Homecrest, Madison, Manhattan Beach, and Gerritsen Beach.

One year ago, police arrested Sergey Mamontov after he confessed to brutally murdering his roommate for being noisy. When police first arrived at the scene, they were horrified  to discover victim Aleksandr Zilbergleyt’s body parts strewn about the apartment in pieces. This week, testifying in court, Mamontov told jurors the full account of his grisly deeds and presented a bizarre defense of his actions, according to a report in the New York Daily News.

The details of Mamontov’s testimony were horrifying. Claiming that his roommate was a drunkard who accidentally killed himself by falling on his head, Mamontov went about covering up his death. Inspired by detective novels, Mamontov chopped up Zilbergleyt’s body into thousands of pieces that he crammed into bleach bottles. He threw his roommate’s fingers into Sheepshead Bay (disgusting) and ran his brain through a meat grinder.

Explaining why he didn’t call the police considering his proclaimed innocence in his roommate’s death, Mamontov claimed he had previously asked the police to mediate an ongoing feud with his roommate but they had refused to intervene. Because of this, Mamontov either didn’t trust the police or believed that they would not care about his now dead roommate.

“I had to make it a secret,” the Daily News reported Mamontov testifying.

Here is a friendly tip: if your roommate dies accidentally through no fault of your own, do not make it a secret. Also do not try to dispose of the body yourself, and for the love of God, do not put their brain through a meat grinder and throw their fingers into Sheepshead Bay. Not only are you going to look guilty, you are going to appear irredeemably insane.

Marty Golden, Photo By Erica Sherman

As the upcoming mayoral race heats up, sharp battle lines between Democrats and Republicans are being drawn. The latest hot-button issue centers around City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s plan to create a special new oversight committee that would monitor and review NYPD policies and procedures, according to a report by the New York Post.

The new agency, dubbed the Inspector General’s Office (IGO), would challenge many controversial policing methods, most famously the stop-and-frisk program, which critics believe overwhelmingly target blacks and Hispanics. The IGO would be placed in the city’s Department of Investigation, the department in charge of investigating all city agencies. The IGO would not take the place of the NYPD’s Internal Affairs, which would still handle individual cases of police misconduct.

According to the Post, Quinn has enough Council votes to pass the measure, even in the face of a mayoral veto by Bloomberg.

Ex-cop and current State Senator Marty Golden blasted Quinn’s plan as “pathetic, sad” and “a setback for the city and the safety of the children.” GOP mayoral candidate, Joe Lhota, also derided the plan.

“Building another bureaucracy is not the answer,” the Post reported Lhota saying at a mayoral debate.

The issue of stop-and-frisk also divided Democrats when former comptroller Bill Thompson rebuked current comptroller John Liu’s call to end the practice.

“I’m worried also about my son being shot by someone who’s a member of a gang in the street.”

For his part, Liu, echoing comments made by Quinn and Thompson, promised to hire thousands of new officers if elected.

A photo from Smith’s drivers license.

ONLY ON SHEEPSHEAD BITES: Emergency responders left Shaun Smith to die because she is transgender, claims a lawsuit brought by the victim’s mother. The Sheepshead Bay attorney representing her says it’s part of a disturbing national trend of discrimination against transgender patients.

The allegations stem from a June 15, 2012, incident, when Smith’s mother, Jenette Cox called 911 after Smith – a transgender woman who was born a man – went into diabetic shock. When EMS responders arrived on the scene and found the victim to be transgender, they failed to render services, Cox alleges.

“This is somebody who needed urgent care and didn’t get it, and basically what stopped them were breasts on an originally male body,” said Ilya Novofastovsky, the Sheepshead Bay attorney representing Cox in the malpractice and discrimination case against the NYPD and the FDNY, which operates the EMS.

Novofastovsky said discrimination against transgender people by emergency responders and medical workers is a nationwide problem that causes a delay or absence of care, and leads to additional suffering and even death for the patient.

Court papers state Smith, who had no history of diabetes, died of diabetic ketoacidosis, which results from a shortage of insulin.

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CompStat reports are produced by the New York Police Department on a weekly basis. We summarize the week’s statistics for the 61st Precinct reports every Friday. The 61st Precinct is the police command responsible for Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, Kings Highway, Homecrest, Madison, Manhattan Beach, and Gerritsen Beach.

Source: asterix611 via flickr

Mayor Michael Bloomberg directed serious heat towards State Senator Marty Golden and two other senators this week over their opposition to the installation of speed enforcement cameras, according to a report in the New York Times.

The issue of reckless driving and speeding has become an exploding issue across the city as a rash of hit-and-run tragedies have made front-page on an ever increasing basis. According to the Times, 274 people died in traffic fatalities across the city last year, the highest since 2008. To combat the rising tide of blood spilled on the roads, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and politicians like Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver have sent letters to Governor Andrew Cuomo pleading for room in the state budget to install speed enforcement cameras. According to the New York Daily News, the inclusion of speed enforcement cameras were recently stripped from the state budget by opponents of the measure.

In assigning blame for the exclusion of the cameras in the state’s budget, Bloomberg pointed his finger at Senators Golden, Simcha Felder and GOP Senate leader Dean Skelos, urging their constituents to call these politicians the next time a tragedy occurs.

“Maybe you want to give those phone numbers to the parents of the child when a child is killed,” the Times reported Bloomberg saying. “It would be useful so that the parents can know exactly who’s to blame.”

Golden, a former police officer with strong ties to the police officers’ union, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, believes that hiring more police officers is the answer to combat dangerous speeding. He also called the cameras “unreliable,” and suggested that a comprehensive study be done on the cameras before going full steam ahead with a plan to install them.

Bloomberg insisted that in light of all the traffic deaths, waiting was no longer an option.

“We literally are having kids that are getting killed around our schools because people are speeding,” he said. “And they don’t want to let us use cameras to stop people from doing that.”

Click to enlarge

CompStat reports are produced by the New York Police Department on a weekly basis. We summarize the week’s statistics for the 61st Precinct reports every Friday. The 61st Precinct is the police command responsible for Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, Kings Highway, Homecrest, Madison, Manhattan Beach, and Gerritsen Beach.

Click to enlarge

CompStat reports are produced by the New York Police Department on a weekly basis. We summarize the week’s statistics for the 61st Precinct reports every Friday. The 61st Precinct is the police command responsible for Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, Kings Highway, Homecrest, Madison, Manhattan Beach, and Gerritsen Beach.

Should performers sanctioned by the MTA be subject to arrest for drawing a crowd? Photo by Erica Sherman

THE COMMUTE: Two weeks ago, I reported on the TWU’s concern for rider and employee safety. However, according to Channel 2 News, instead of focusing on some of the problems regarding safety, such as the accuracy of crime statistics — a major concern among the prospective mayoral candidates — the transit police are endangering rider safety by arresting and jailing riders overnight for infractions that are usually dealt with by handing out summonses.

Have you ever walked between subway cars at the terminal in Brighton Beach? Not only should that not be illegal because it is not dangerous, it can subject you to a $75 fine or, worse yet, land you in jail. So don’t do it unless your life is in danger. However, that is not even the worst of it. When questioned by Channel 2 News, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly had the audacity to defend the arresting officers, calling this a good police practice. And this man was actually asked to run for mayor?

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