It’s Hard Out There For An Executive Director Of An Arts Organization In East Tremont

It’s hard out there for an arts organization when prostitutes mistake your donors for johns:

The Bronx River Art Center tries to escape its noisy urban surroundings by facing the lush, green riverfront.

But it can’t escape the drug dealers, prostitutes, pimps and petty criminals who camp in front of its doors.

Visitors’ vehicles have been vandalized. Potential donors have been propositioned by prostitutes, and the number of parents bringing their children to free art classes is down in recent months, according to the staff.

“It’s an infestation,” said Gail Nathan, the center’s executive director. “We fear for the kids coming to the art center. We fear for our staff and visitors.”

She ought to know. Her car has been vandalized five times and her tires have been slashed. She now parks five blocks away from the center to avoid the wrath of criminals.

If You Do, Don’t, And If You Further Do, You Really Shouldn’t

Moral of the story — don’t play high-stakes games of dice. Or perhaps if you do play high-stakes games of dice, don’t bet your vehicle. Or maybe, if you do bet your vehicle in a high-stakes game of dice, and you then lose, certainly don’t renege on the bet:

A high-stakes dice game took a near-deadly turn when a drug felon from Stapleton allegedly shot and wounded a loser who bet his car and refused to give it up.

Jerome Mitchell, 19, of Hill Street has been indicted for allegedly attacking the unidentified male shortly before midnight on July 23 at Castleton Avenue and West Street in West Brighton.

A law enforcement source said the victim bet his car in a dice game with Mitchell. The man lost, but when he wouldn’t sign over the vehicle’s title, Mitchell shot him.

The defendant was charged with one count of first-degree assault and three counts of criminal weapon possession.

Smaller Guns, Plastic Keys

Rejected Post headline — “It’s Not The Size, It’s What You Do With It”:

City cops are on the alert for the SwissMiniGun — a 2.16-inch replica of a Colt Python capable of shooting bullets that are just one-third of an inch long.

The six-shot revolver — which sells for about $500 and can literally fit in the palm of a hand — is capable of causing serious damage, authorities say.

The guns cannot be imported legally, but smuggling is a concern, officials said.

Cops are also watching out for plastic handcuff keys that are approximately the size of a nickel.

The keys cannot be picked up by metal detectors and look like a pendant when worn on a chain.

The NYPD last Saturday warned the city’s 36,000 officers to “use extreme vigilance” when searching, guarding and transporting prisoners.

When “Helping A Lot Of People” Leads To Temptation

A cop has been arrested for stealing the credit cards of people whose deaths he was investigating:

Officer Eduardo Saillant, 38, of the 60th Precinct in Brooklyn allegedly took the cards while taking part in investigations of elderly people’s deaths, a law-enforcement source said.

He used the cards to charge an undetermined amount of money at gas stations and stores such as Home Depot, the source said. And when he was busted, he was also found with a stolen police radio, cops said.

Saillant was arrested quietly on Tuesday and freed on his own recognizance Wednesday. He was slapped with misdemeanor charges of petit larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and official misconduct and a felony charge of grand larceny in the fourth degree, which could get him up to four years in prison.

The first alleged theft occurred on May 3, when Saillant and his partner responded to a report of a death on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. There they found the body of Howard Apler, 63, who died of heart disease.

Saillant allegedly swiped Apler’s Visa card and used it to charge items at a Home Depot and for gasoline.

A short time later, the dead man’s sister noticed charges being made to the card and, after talking with relatives, alerted police.

Then there’s this apology:

Richard Acevedo, 42, a close friend of the officer’s, said Saillant is a divorced dad of two.

“Eddie’s a good-hearted person,” Acevedo said. “He tries to help a lot of people, and sometimes helping a lot of people he gets himself in trouble.”

Insert Law & Order Donk-Donk Here

I can almost hear Jerry Orbach say it — “Some strange characters hang out in this neck of the woods”*:

The body of a man clad in a kinky black leather mask and decked out head to toe in S&M gear was hanging from a chain-link fence on Hudson Street yesterday — as many passers-by ignored it, thinking it was a Halloween display.

The slightly built, fair-skinned mystery man may have been choked to death by a dog collar around his neck, it’s other end strapped around a 3-foot-tall fence post, police sources said.

The 40ish, tattooed man was found kneeling, braced face-first against the fence in front of 424 Hudson St. at around 6:45 a.m.

In a bizarre twist, the body had been there for at least an hour, dismissed by some who walked past as a quirky seasonal display in an area scattered with S&M and gay bars.

“The body was covered with a black suit and he had a mask on his face,” said deli owner Indra Patel, who first spotted the strangely posed corpse when he opened next door around 5:30 a.m.

“I thought it was a dummy. It looked like a dummy, because every year they do decorations like that. I was wondering why they put up the [Halloween] decorations early.”

Patel said at least an hour went by before a woman walking her dog realized the sidewalk exhibit of a man wearing a pair of leather spiked gloves, chaps and a vest was a real person and called police.

Cops were investigating if the man had committed suicide or died during some sort of bizarre auto-erotic sex game.

. . .

Another witness, Kevin Samuel, 50, a porter for a building across the street, said he had looked at the body several times but it just never clicked that it might be a real person.

“I’m staring at him and I think, ‘Is that a prop or a real person?’ His legs looked like he was twisted on an angle and that he fell in it [the fence]. It looked like he was stuck there and couldn’t get up, like he lost his balance,” Samuel said.

*OK, OK — being Jerry Orbach is harder than it looks!