Surveillance Cameras Work!

But it’s unlikely that Ray Kelly will tout this example:

The gutless driver busted yesterday for mowing down a bike-riding Brooklyn teen was done in by a high-tech video surveillance system set up by drug dealers to protect the building they once used as their den, sources said.

Melvin Morales, 34, was initially arrested about an hour after Sunday’s hit-and-run, by rookie cops who witnessed the tragedy.

The officers had chased the hit-run tow truck from the scene, but lost it briefly. When they saw Morales parked a few blocks away in a similar vehicle, they suspected it was the same truck and he was the driver.

While cops were trying to find proof, they were able to hold him on a DWI charge after his blood-alcohol level measured .096.

Cops found the evidence they needed at a building near the crash scene. Tape from an elaborate video system showed the rookies pursuing the same truck they later found parked.

Investigators then discovered paint transferred from tragic Anthony Delgado’s bicycle on the truck, sources said.

The equipment that helped nail Morales was installed by drug dealers later busted by the feds.

Douchebag, Thy Name Is Jack

You just got caught hitting a 101-year-old lady, sort of a tough thing to live down:

After an eight-week manhunt, the cowardly crook accused of assaulting and robbing two grannies in Queens last month — including a 101-year-old — was collared yesterday.

And it turns out Jack Rhodes, who’s 44 and 5-foot-10, 200 pounds, doesn’t just prey on old folks — he is suspected of punching the 5-year-old son of another woman he robbed, a police source said.

Cops checking a report of a car break-in busted Rhodes at 9:40 a.m. yesterday near the corner of Carroll and Henry streets in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. He was carrying a crack pipe, police said.

Rhodes’ elderly victims — Rose Morat, 101, and Solange Elizee, 85 — picked him out of a photo array and a conventional lineup, cops said.

“I am so sorry for what happened,” Rhodes said last night as he left the 109th Precinct.

When asked by a Post reporter if he enjoys beating up old women, Rhodes snapped, “No, I do not!”

And Rhodes’ fellow inmates seem to agree with conventional wisdom that he is one of the biggest douchebags ever:

Alleged “granny-basher” Jack Rhodes is confined to his Rikers Island cell for 23 hours a day to protect him from other inmates, officials said yesterday.

A guard shadows him during the hour he can leave his cell for exercise.

Word of the protective custody comes days after police took the unusual step of housing Rhodes, 44, overnight at the 109th Precinct for his own safety before his arraignment at Queens Criminal Court Saturday.

But the best form of justice comes from piling on:

A 44-year-old man who investigators say assaulted two elderly women during muggings — one of which was caught on video — was charged in those cases and in two other crimes, the authorities said yesterday.

The suspect, Jack Rhodes, was charged with two counts of robbery as a hate crime, according to the Queens district attorney’s office, because he singled out elderly victims.

(Is it really a hate crime to target the weak?)

Previously: “Jesus, What A Jerk”.

They Got Capone On Tax Evasion, They’ll Get You For Walking Between Cars

Is there a correlation between walking between subway cars and crime? Steven Levitt is never around when you need him:

The MTA’s rule banning people from moving between subway cars has helped put the brakes on crime and increase arrests, including 166 people busted for outstanding warrants, the NYPD said yesterday.

NYPD Chief of Transit James Hall said the subway rule, created for safety reasons, has been “extremely effective” for transit cops nabbing some rough riders.

“When we looked at that [regulation] and then looked at our complaint reports, we see a lot of victims tell us that when they were victimized that the bad guy or the bad gal walked through the cars,” said Hall. “So we’ve attempted to put a lot more officers on the trains looking for that offense.”

Since January, transit cops around the city have issued 1,953 summonses for people moving between cars, and have arrested 166 for a return on warrants, four for loaded guns and 45 for illegal knives, an NYPD spokesman said.

But it’s not so much a safety issue as it seems to be just another way to harrass bad people:

“We’re really stopping people with bad histories,” said Hall. More than 100 “people already with outstanding warrants — that’s huge.”

Now where’s the ACLU when you need them?

Then They Can Have An Amber Alert For Her

In what may finally close the book on the Vivi story, legislators may soon be considering passing “Vivi’s Law”:

More than a year after the slim white whippet with brown markings escaped from the tarmac of Kennedy Airport, the calls are still coming in from throughout the city, even from the Bronx.

. . .

Now [search coordinator] Ms. [Bonnie] Folz and her fellow searchers have turned their attention toward measures that might prevent a similar occurrence. Specifically, they hope to rally support for what they are calling a Vivi Bill, federal legislation that would require that animals be moved onto and off planes in more secure fashion.

Airline employees would be required to keep animals in a secure area before loading and unloading them, and the legislation would include provisions for contacting the owner of an animal if it is lost or in distress, or if the crate carrying the animal is opened.

. . .

The dozen or so women working on the Vivi Bill have not yet contacted any legislators. But they are taking solace in the example of the Boris Bill, federal legislation enacted in 2005 that requires airlines to report incidents of animals in distress to the Department of Transportation.

See also: Vivi the Whippet.

Why Not Ask CB 1 About Centre Street?*

Can somebody please help Jerry Orbach’s widow honor the man? Because apparently Community Board 5 is all, like, “principled” or something:

It is a tribute that has been paid to Peter Jennings, Humphrey Bogart, Joey Ramone, even Señor Wences. But getting a Manhattan street corner named for Jerry Orbach, former star of stage and screen and consummate New Yorker, will be no open-and-shut case.

Mr. Orbach may have been nominated three times for Tony Awards as a song-and-dance man on Broadway and he may have owned the role of the cynical New York City detective as Lennie Briscoe on “Law & Order.” But he still may not make the cut to have his name placed on a street sign in Midtown.

Mr. Orbach’s widow, Elaine, is learning that having a city block or a corner renamed for somebody is not as simple as the jumble of honorary signs might suggest. As in so many other matters of real estate, location may be the deciding factor.

Her target is 53rd Street and Eighth Avenue, where she and her late husband lived for 25 years before he died in December 2004 at age 69. “This was his neighborhood,” Mrs. Orbach said in an interview.

But that intersection is on the western edge of the territory overseen by Community Board 5, a group that routinely rejects such requests on principle. The board members generally prefer not to clutter up their district, which includes Times Square, with additional signs, said Gary Parker, the district manager.

Alternative: Doesn’t the Manhattan Detention Complex need a name now that Kerik’s is gone?

*Or go around the block and ask CB 3 about Baxter Street!