When Not Even 7.1 Percent Is Enough Of An Increase

Teacher pay is so low that some dedicated educators have (allegedly) resorted to selling drugs:

Investigators armed with a search warrant stormed into the home of Rishona White, 34, at 1051 Eastern Parkway at 5:30 p.m. after they suspected narcotics were being sold out of the Tilden HS teacher’s house.

After conducting the search, cops found a large amount of heroin, cocaine, and marijuana, police said.

White was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell. Police are looking into whether she sold drugs in the school or to students.

And He Believed Him!

I thought this only worked in the movies:

On Thursday about 10:30 p.m., after taping a performance on the “Late Show With David Letterman,” the Game, whose real name is Jayceon Taylor, 26, hopped into a livery cab with two other men at West 56th Street and Seventh Avenue, near the hotel where he had been staying for his appearance on the show.

The police said Mr. Taylor told the driver he was an officer, flashed a badge and ordered the driver to speed through red lights because he needed to get somewhere quickly. The driver did as he was told, until he was pulled over by the police at West 43rd Street and Avenue of the Americas, the authorities said. After the driver told the police why he had run the lights, Mr. Taylor was arrested [for impersonating a police officer] and given a desk appearance ticket, which means he was released on his own recognizance but must appear before a judge within 30 days, the police said.

“He Was Really Pissed Off”

Those vases are for floral arrangements you senile old coot:

Itomor Khaimov, 28, was near his home, walking his German shepherd Nona by the final resting place of his grandmother Sonya Khanukhova at Washington Cemetery in Bensonhurst.

As he approached the gravesite, he saw something ghastly

James Scott, 80, was relieving himself in a vase on Khanukhova’s grave, the Brooklyn man said.

Incredulous, Khaimov shouted, “What the f— are you doing?” at Scott, who was holding a rake.

“He said, ‘I’m urinating,’ and didn’t stop,” Khaimov told The Post yesterday.

“I started to cry and scream, ‘Do you realize this is my grandmother’s grave?'” Khaimov recounted. “He said, ‘I’m an old man, I can’t hold it.'”

Scott told Khaimov to “get out of there” but there was no stopping the grandson.

As Khaimov confronted him, Scott swung at him with the rake, hitting him on the head and causing a mild concussion, according to police sources.

“He took a big swing like he was holding bat — he was really pissed off,” said Khaimov. The young man went to nearby Maimonides Hospital where he was treated and released after the Nov. 1 incident. Then he called 911.

“This is supposed to be a calm place, a place for them to rest,” said Khaimov. After an investigation, cops arrested Scott on Tuesday and charged him with second-degree assault, menacing, and criminal possession of a weapon: the rake.

And With An Oddly Toothy Grin The Broker Smiled, “Dangerous? Why Would You Say That?”

Your first thought upon being mugged in that “up-and-coming” neighborhood you just moved to? “Damn brokers”:

I’m sitting in a windowless room in a back annex of Precinct 77 holding a frozen bag of peas to the base of my skull. There’s no ice at Precinct 77. Florescent bulbs cast flickering light on the cinderblock walls and scuffed linoleum while I look over a police officer’s shoulder at six faces on a dim computer screen — all unhappy black men. Having just been beaten and robbed outside of my apartment, I’m scanning mugshots for the five or six attackers. It’s an exercise in futility; by the time I realized I was being mugged, all I could see was the sidewalk. The officers who picked me up said that people’s belongings rarely turn up, whether they catch the thieves or not. In fact, they’re surprised I’d even stayed to look at mugshots; most people in my situation just accept their fate and move on.

. . .

[Crown Heights] has undergone a . . . miraculous change, as Brooklyn real estate agents never fail to mention. Crime is down and renters are getting a steal. Far from the powder keg of years past, it’s officially up-and-coming and a stone’s throw from Prospect Park. A 2004 New York Times article dubbed Crown Heights a “hidden jewel,” and the accepted wisdom is that you should grab real estate in the borough while you still can.

This is the sentiment echoed by Ruby Allen, a Coldwell Banker real estate agent who has worked in the area for years. When I ask her if she considers it dangerous, she was shocked at the suggestion.

“Dangerous? Why would you say that?” she asks. “I don’t think so.”

But I’m not alone in my presupposition of danger. Crown Heights and its irritable neighbor to the north, Bedford-Stuyvesant — frequently — top the shortlist of areas to avoid at night. But Ms. Allen’s view remains unfalteringly rosy.

“I’ve spent a lifetime in those areas, and they’re OK,” she says. “You’re going to have problems here and there, but it’s not uncommon to what’s going on in other areas.”

Which is to say that this week’s issue is perhaps not the best place for Brian Carter to be singing the virtues of the biz:

Before becoming a real estate agent, I had never worked in sales before (unless you count up-selling vodka). The extent of my training consisted of learning a few buildings, taking some pictures, posting ads and then answering the phone. A week after completing my licensing exam, I was explaining to an Indian couple why that particular unit was such a smart move. They didn’t take the apartment, but I left there feeling pretty lit up.

I calculated what my fee would have been had they taken the apartment and then immediately began devising ways in which I could have forced them into it. I’m joking of course, but I was motivated. “Holy shit,” I thought, “the playbook is like twice the size of the rule book.”

. . .

From scheduling to attire to how exactly you gain entrance to a vacant apartment, the truth is there are very few rules. Even the ways in which you manage to convince an otherwise rational human being that a 550-square-foot one bedroom apartment is worth every penny of $3500 is really not a matter of concern. If they sign the lease, the checks all clear and no lawsuits are filed, you did your job successfully.

So yeah, I admit it, I sort of like being a rental agent. Like politics, you are going to have to get your hands a little dirty if you are going to get anywhere in this business. And in this equally flawed and overbearing country of ours, the moment I stop liking it, I can always try some other way of making a living. I could even trade my balls in for a corporate job and a dental plan, but that’s another great thing about real estate: You don’t need great teeth.

(BC, we kid because we love!)

Time Was, We’d Take Your Car To A Chop Shop . . . No Longer!

What a letdown to realize that the beautiful car you just had stolen is worth more as scrap metal in Asia:

The NYPD yesterday capped “Operation Steal for Steel,” arresting a dozen car thieves who swiped more than 100 vehicles that were crushed and sold for scrap metal in Asia, authorities said.

“They were crushed and sold for their weight,” said inspector Howard Lawrence, commanding officer of the NYPD Auto Crime Division.

“Typically, they’d be stolen and crushed before the owners knew they were missing.”

. . .

The NYPD got wind of the scheme about six months ago and began focusing on a scrap yard in Brooklyn that was an outlet for stolen cars.

Brooklyn Resources, in Canarsie, was buying cars from thieves who used phony Department of Motor Vehicle documents to convince the scrap-yard bosses they were legitimate owners of cars they wanted to junk.

The firm would then pay the thieves $4.50 to $9 per pound for the stolen cars, meaning that a crook could pocket $270 for a 3,000-pound Toyota Camry, Lawrence said.