Crime Blotter

Staten Island Rocks?With Crime!

You'd think that if Staten Island resident Robert Fichtenbaum, 63, were having problems with his wife, the two of them could sit down and discuss it face to face in a civilized fashion. What he did instead was leave a scribbled note on the kitchen table early March 23rd. A few steps beyond your typical "Dear Jane" letter, it read in part: "I would keep an orthopedic surgeon close by. I have acquired a handgun and a 25-gallon drum of chloroform."

It's unclear why he needed quite that much chloroform, and we may never know. According to the Post, he was picked up the following day and charged with aggravated harassment.

You gotta hand it to another Staten Islander, 20-year-old Michael Long-at least he wasn't going to try and lie.

After cops pulled him over for erratic driving about 2 a.m. Thursday, March 23, Long leapt from his car still clutching the beer he was working on, and took off running. It's uncertain how many beers he'd had that night, but his running wasn't any more graceful than his driving, and cops caught up with him without too much fuss.

Thirty-eight-year-old Daniel O'Brien, a homeless man from Staten Island, has had his share of beefs with the government. In 2002 he ended up on a secret-service watch-list after threatening the president. In recent days, he's been having trouble getting anyone from the SSA to give him a straight answer regarding why his benefits had been cut off.

So on Monday, he shoved a BB gun into his pocket and headed for 26 Federal Plaza, home of both the SSA and the FBI. He figured the pencil pushers might be more forthcoming with a gun pointed at them.

It's too bad O'Brien forgot about those little annoyances we call "metal detectors."

Also on Monday, police received a call from a frantic old woman from Queens, who said her 82-year-old husband was missing. Two things made the woman especially fretful. First, her husband had Alzheimer's. And second, he'd apparently driven off in his SUV.

Much to her relief, she soon learned that police had found both the husband and the SUV, which was teetering precariously at the end of a pier in Red Hook, mere inches from disaster.

The man was rescued and returned home safely, but several questions persist. For instance, why does an 82-year-old with Alzheimer's still have a driver's license? And why is he still allowed to get behind the wheel of an SUV?

And lord knows what was in the air last Tuesday, but jeepers creepers, people were dropping like flies. A 92-year-old great-grandmother in the Bronx took a 10-story dive to avoid being sent to a nursing home. A 44-year-old man in Co-Op City jumped off the top of his building. A 39-year-old father of two hopped in front of a train at the Columbus Circle station during the evening rush, and another guy jumped in front of an L train. No one "miraculously survived."