Dumb Ruses Gone Bad

Police are currently looking for a man with long dreads and incredibly bad aim, who allegedly opened fire on a Crown Heights street on the afternoon of Sat. June 4. In spite of firing an estimated nine to 12 shots (depending on which eyewitness you talk to), the gunman only struck his presumed target-a 48-year-old man-once, and even then only hit him in the arm. Another bullet struck a 12-year-old passer-by, hitting him in the arm as well. The rest went whizzing this way and that, not hitting much of anything else.

The shooter (and we use that term very loosely here) then hopped into a gold car and puttered away.

Shortly before 8 a.m. Sunday morning, police found the body of Washington Heights resident Robert Levy, 46, by the side of the Henry Hudson Parkway, just to the north of the George Washington Bridge. Although Levy's head was allegedly all bashed in, reports left it unclear whether he was the victim of a violent crime, had been run over by a car, or had perhaps taken a swan dive from some Washington heights.

A bright and talented aspiring singer from Russia (they aren't calling her that in the papers, though, because she was working as a stripper) was found by her roommate about 4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning in the kitchen of their Sheepshead Bay apartment. A few expensive items had been stolen, but cops think that was a cheap ruse-what matters is that there were no signs of forced entry, and the young woman had been stabbed in the head "more times than you can count."

Now that 30-year-old Elena Pismennaya-Bem is dead, her neighbors have been taking the opportunity to parade around cloaked in moral superiority. They've been clucking their tongues about the fact that the young woman used to hang out in her garden without hardly any clothes on at all, and used to wear furs and ride in luxury cars with men. The contempt they expressed for their former neighbor was allegedly so apparent that several were brought in for questioning in connection with the murder. And even though they seem to believe she deserved what she got, all were eventually released.

Street pimps in general have never really been known for their subtle cleverness. So when a 40-year-old mack daddy tried to pull a fast one in Bushwick Tuesday night, well, it didn't quite go the way he expected. After allegedly confronting one of his girls' clients while pretending to be her jealous boyfriend, the pimp proceeded to beat the man. Certain he had him good and scared and feeling guilty, the pimp then attempted to relieve him of what was left of his cash. The john, however, apparently got wise to the play-acting, pulled a gun and allegedly pumped a slug into the pimp's chest, killing him. Sources say the man then jumped into a car with Maryland plates and sped home to his wife and children.