My Foxreports law enforcement will not bring criminal charges against Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., for threatening to do bodily harm to a reporter, according to a police official."Consistent with our law enforcement responsibilities, we looked into the event, determined there isn't a complainant and have closed the matter," Shennell Antrobus, a spokesman for the U.S. Capitol Police, said in a statement.The confrontation occurred on a balcony in the U.S. Capitol following the president's State of the Union address Tuesday night.Grimm, who represents Staten Island and part of Brooklyn, walked out of an interview with cable news station NY1 when reporter Michael Scotto tried to throw in a last question about a long-running FBI investigation into his campaign finances.After Scotto finished his report, Grimm stormed back, leaned into Scotto and said, "Let me be clear to you. If you ever do that to me again, I'll throw you off this (expletive) balcony."Scotto protested, saying he was asking "a valid question."Grimm glanced at the camera, leaned in again and said, "No. No. You're not man enough. You're not man enough. I'll break you in half. Like a boy."When the possibility of criminal charges first arose in reports, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is also a former federal prosecutor, called that "laughable."
"He lost his temper. I was the United States Attorney and if someone came to me with a case like this they wanted to investigate I'd throw them out of my office," Giuliani said. "First off all, he didn't touch him… Federal crimes are killing people, selling drugs, organized crime, massive frauds. To use the resources of the federal government for this kind of stuff gives it the suggestion, the appearance that it's being politically motivated. The Attorney General should be careful not to have that appearance out there."More here
New YorkTimes reports the former Port Authority official who personally oversaw the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge, central to the scandal now swirling around Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, said on Friday that “evidence exists” the governor knew about the lane closings when they were happening.In a letter released by his lawyer, the former official, David Wildstein, a high school friend of Mr. Christie’s who was appointed with the governor’s blessing at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge, described the order to close the lanes as “the Christie administration’s order” and said “evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference” three weeks ago.More here
New York Post reports as his first month as police commissioner under Mayor de Blasio winds down, Bill Bratton is already facing some sobering news — a 33 percent spike in murders across the city.According to the latest statistics released Tuesday, there have been 28 homicides so far this year compared to 21 in the same period last year.That puts the city on course for at least one murder a day.Last year, the Big Apple racked up 334 homicides in 365 days, the lowest in the city’s recorded history.“I think Bratton needs to be concerned about the homicide numbers, but he’s a field commander at heart,” said a law-enforcement source. “If there’s something egregiously wrong, he will go straight to the source — the precinct or precincts that are problematic — and fix it right away.”The source blamed de Blasio’s anti-stop-and-frisk push for the uptick in slayings.“This is the residual effect of de Blasio’s backlash against stop-and-frisk,’’ the source said. “Cops aren’t stopping people and taking guns off the street, which emboldens the criminals,” the source said.More here
