Cops ‘tagged’
2 suspended after susp’s escape hits Facebook
YOU CAN escape the police — but not Facebook!
The NYPD has suspended two Bronx cops for failing to report that someone they arrested had escaped — until a video of the man giving cops the slip showed up on Facebook, authorities said Thursday.
Officers Victor Yupa and Josue Vassallo busted three men on E. 178th St. near Grand Concourse in Mount Hope about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday while responding to a call about a drug sale in progress.
The three were acting out — bothering those around them — when cops arrived.
The officers cuffed 21-year-old Alejandro Castillo’s hands behind his back and put him into their unlocked squad car. When they turned their attention to apprehending THE JUDGE heard crickets.
Charges against a Bronx street performer who threw worms and crickets on a crowded subway train to bring awareness to homelessness will go forward, according to a ruling by Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Curtis Farber.
Performer Zaida Pugh’s attorney, Amy Albert, learned Thursday that Farber denied her motion to dismiss her client’s charges on the grounds that Brooklyn prosecutors did not prove their case.
The judge will determine in June whether to combine the cases of two other suspects, a witness opened the door to the car, allowing Castillo to get out of the car and run off.
Vassallo and Yupa cuffed the other two men and brought them to the 46th Precinct stationhouse, apparently never telling anyone they briefly had a third suspect in custody.
The secret was revealed Thursday when NYPD brass became aware of the video circulating on Facebook.
The video shows someone opening the rear door for Castillo, who then slips away while the two officers are occupied, police sources with knowledge of the incident said.
The cops had to pore through Pugh, 22, and co-defendant Candido Geigel, 16, who allegedly assisted Pugh.
The performer was caught on video pretending to be homeless and selling 300 crickets and 300 worms on a Brooklyn-bound D train in August and throwing them at straphangers.
“The people state the videotape of the incident and the defendant’s recorded statements will be strong enough evidence of her guilt,” Farber wrote on April 4. mug shots of recently arrested neighborhood residents until they identified Castillo as the man who had escaped from the car. Police got a warrant for his arrest and found him at his home, not far from the crime scene. Castillo was charged with escape, police said. The two men arrested with Castillo on Tuesday — 21-year-old Jared Alvarez and 20-year-old Joseph Reyes — were charged with disorderly conduct, given a criminal court summonses and sent home. Yupa and Vassallo, who have both served on the force for about three years, were suspended for failing to secure a prisoner. The person who opened the door for Castillo hasn’t been found, police sources said. An NYPD spokeswoman said the entire incident — and the officer’s failure to report that they had lost a prisoner — “was under internal review.”
Castillo is the second man to escape from police custody this year.
On Feb. 11, an East Harlem man suspected of shoplifting at a Duane Reade drug store escaped a squad car that he was put into, officials said.
Xavier Rivers, 21, managed to open the squad car door while handcuffed and bolt away — outrunning his two arresting officers.
Police officers lost track of the green-clad Rivers in Central Park, officials said.
Investigators ultimately caught up with Rivers three days later, charging him with escape.
One of the two cops who arrested him, Police Officer Henry Vidal, was suspended for failure to secure a prisoner.