I was assigned to cover heroin use in Mott Haven. As a reporter I’m responsible for learning the ins and outs of the “beat,” the neighborhood and the people that call it home.

According to one officer, hand-to-hand business is vintage, and the “dead drop”—leaving money in one place and drugs in another separately, is the present—and the future.

A vigil was held on Thursday night, in memory of Shaquanna Button, the 36 year old woman who was shot in the face and killed Monday night outside a Mott Haven bodega.

A 25-year-old Port Morris man was sentenced in Bronx Criminal Court on Dec. 11, to spend 15 years behind bars for an October incident in which he shot and wounded three innocent bystanders in Kingsbridge, then stabbed an accomplice in St. Mary’s Park the following day to shut her up.Read More

Increased needle sightings are just one of the symptoms that surfaced this spring, after the 40th Precinct shut down The Hole—a notorious drug den out of sight from onlookers on E. 149th St. and St. Ann’s Ave.

Salim Wilson, 25, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to second-degree murder in the Aug. 29 fatal shooting of 24-year-old Julio Valesquez.

After their previous case was dropped last year, the victim and his alleged killer brought suits against two police officers, whom they accuse of having pressured witnesses into identifying them as the culprits, according to the New York Daily News.

It was business as usual last Wednesday as Crime Prevention Officer Reina Marrero walked past the 40th Precinct’s holding cells. One was occupied. But on Halloween, these cells will be filled with a crop of unearthly inmates.