From Deranged Hippie Fugitive To Deranged Hippie Reject

When you’re on the lam, everything is exciting at first. Everyone thinks of you as a badass. You can taunt your victims. Then you get unceremoniously taken into custody after exiting the el train in West Philly — where’s the shootout in that!? — and all of the sudden you’re just some “deranged hippie reject”:

A deranged hippie reject, accused of gunning down a Staten Island commune leader, was nabbed yesterday at a Philadelphia train station after more than a year on the lam, officials said.

Rebekah Johnson, 44, jumped from behind a row of bushes and waylaid Ganas leader Jeff Gross outside the commune’s Staten Island compound along a sloping section of Corson Avenue, shooting him six times with a .38-caliber pistol on Memorial Day 2006, police said.

Witnesses said Johnson quickly walked away down a hill, virtually disappearing for 13 months until a fugitive task force caught up with the hateful hippie has-been in the City of Brotherly Love.

Authorities said they tracked her there after she got sloppy and bought a car in Delaware using her real name, and opened a post office box in nearby Cherry Hill, N.J.

Johnson was placed under arrest at 11 a.m. after she stepped off a train from Camden, N.J., to Philadelphia in the city’s western section, where a dozen law-enforcement officers were waiting for her.

“We had prior intelligence that she was going to be there,” said Robert Kurtz, acting supervisor of the Marshals Service’s fugitive task force. “She didn’t try to escape.”

Kurtz said the suspect was not armed when she was caught.

Bass — How Low Can You Go? Little Earthquakes!

Today’s cops are DJs weaving together a symphony of sirens, with motorists as muses:

There is the yelp, an electronic yodel that grabs attention at intersections or kicks off chases. There is the wail, more traditional; it sounds like the windup police sirens of yore. There is the “hi-lo,” dubbed the “European” siren by some, because it evokes the police chases seen — and heard — in French and Italian films.

The air-horn siren works well, officers say, for clearing intersections of pedestrians and getting the attention of speeding drivers. And the fast, or priority, siren sounds like an asteroid blaster from an old video game, and feels like a jackhammer assault on the ears.

That is the menu of sirens available to New York City police officers, each one making a specific impression, each at an officer’s fingertips. The sirens allow officers to choose sounds with a personal touch, like the conductors of a screeching, sound-bending orchestra.

And there is something new. Christened with a tantalizing name, the Rumbler, it sends out low, bone-rattling vibrations, so it is not only heard, but also felt. One has been tested on the streets of New York, but the jury is out on whether it is effective, offensive or terrifying.

. . .

Every time you hear that distinct and invasive wail, which may not technically be a wail, chances are the police officer behind it has made a deliberate, even aesthetic choice.

The decision is wholly subjective; there are no guidelines. Officers are simply told to mix the sirens up.

On a recent spin around Manhattan, up the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive and then down the West Side Highway, Officer Spiros Komis, who has been with the highway patrol for 20 years, offered up an aural palette of what sirens he uses, and when. What would he do if he were chasing a speeding driver?

“I go through the whole mode,” he said, his fingers hovering above a dash-mounted keyboard that controls a police car’s lights and sounds.

“But I might start with a wail,” he said, pressing a button. The air filled with a familiar nasal drone. “And then I’d go to a constant yelp,” he said, and the car began bleating. A red Acura driving ahead promptly pulled right, into the center lane, its driver nervously checking his speed. “Then I’d give a little bit of the air horn; I’d give it a little toot,” he said, and gave it a little toot.

And then there’s the Rumbler:

To experience it is to feel a little earthquake beneath one’s feet.

Robert S. Martinez, director of the department’s fleet services unit, says the Rumbler has brought pedestrians and traffic to a dead stop every time he has tried out the test model. Departments in Alexandria, Va., and elsewhere in the Washington area already have Rumblers, according to Tom Morgan of Federal Signal, a leading siren supplier. It works like a bass-heavy boombox, sending out vibrations through two woofers.

But though the Rumbler is bound to grab the attention of even the most jaded New Yorker, it may frighten too many people, Mr. Martinez said.

“It’s debatable whether this would be good or bad for New York City,” he said. “You don’t want to hurt people’s ears. Even though it’s a lower decibel, it almost seems offensive.”

The Judge Just Had A Vision Of A Great T-Shirt: “Free The Sapphic Septet”

Maybe in eleven years she’ll be scared straight:

The pint-sized ring leader of a gang of seven rampaging lesbians collapsed shrieking in a Manhattan courtroom yesterday as a judge sentenced her to 11 years in prison for the brutal beat-down and stabbing of a man who promised to turn them “straight” in Greenwich Village last summer.

“Noooo!” 4-foot-11, 95-pound Patreese Johnson wailed after learning her startling sentence — the highest several defense lawyers had ever heard of for a nonfatal stabbing.

“No!” she sobbed. “Please! Nooooo!”

Johnson, 20, fell to the courtroom floor and was carried out kicking and screaming.

She and her three co-de fendants, who were also sentenced yesterday, were convicted of second-degree gang assault during a sensational trial in April.

Renata Hill, 25, was sentenced to eight years in prison; Venice Brown, 19, got five; Terraine Dandridge, 20, got 31/2.

The gang’s remaining three women are serving six-month prison terms after pleading guilty to lesser charges in the attack on Queens filmmaker Dwayne Buckle, 29.

Johnson had been additionally convicted of first-degree gang assault for stabbing Buckle in the gut, and could have received anywhere from five to 25 years.

The women claimed they attacked Buckle in self-defense after he lunged at them during an argument in which he allegedly said sex with him would turn them straight.

Surveillance video belies that story, the prosecutor said in court.

It shows at a brief lull in the brawl — and then the seething, Sapphic septet striking anew.

Earlier: The Unluckiest Guy On The Face Of The Earth.

Run To The (Dongan) Hills, Run For Your Lives!

This obviously will become a top YouTube download:

Cops on the North Shore are hoping to give attention-starved graffiti suspects a different kind of notoriety — by featuring their mug shots in a DVD video set to heavy metal and reggae tunes.

The video, put together by the 120th Precinct’s anti-graffiti squad, is set to go out to community leaders, politicians and police brass, and may find its way into school assemblies.

It shows before-and-after pictures of graffiti clean-up jobs at hundreds of different spots on the North Shore, as music by AC/DC, Iron Maiden and Green Day blares in the background.

And it’s capped off by mug shot photos of nearly three dozen graffiti suspects, as their alleged tags scroll up the screen, shown to the tune of “Bad Boys” by Inner Circle.

. . .

The DVD’s parade of mug shots ends with a close-up on Russell Farriola, 20, of West Brighton, who cops refer to as the Island’s top graffiti vandal. Using the tag “Aloe,” Farriola waged a one-year graffiti campaign on dozens of spots on the North Shore, cops allege.

Farriola’s lawyer, Jason Leventhal, declined to comment about his client being included in the video, except to say, “It is what it is.”

But “Neurolaw” Sounded So Good When They Explained It On Fresh Air!

By the way, that trendy “neurolaw”-based defense turned out to fail in the end:

The jury in State Supreme Court in Manhattan rejected the defense argument that [douchebag] was delusional and so mentally ill that he lacked the intent to commit a crime.

He was convicted of 10 counts of kidnapping, burglary, robbery and sexual abuse — every charge against him except arson. He faces 25 years to life in prison on the most serious charge, kidnapping, at his sentencing, set for next month.

The verdict, which came after the jury had deliberated for barely four hours, was an uncommonly swift finish to a three-week trial. The jury began considering the charges about 12:30 p.m. and sent a note announcing its verdict to Justice Thomas Farber at 4:23 p.m.

Postgame recap: Mychal Judge Was A Hero To Most But He Never Meant Shit To Pete, Sunday Times Magazine Sets Up Peter Braunstein Defense, God Help Me If The Post Ever Notices My Hair, Leaving Brooklyn? Fuhgeddaboudit! They Do That?