By Doug Black

The unforgiving hand of criminality continues to randomly rob New Yorkers of their innocence. On Oct. 7, a rookie cop was on his way to his Queens precinct when he stumbled into a convoluted web of crime. After spotting a man dressed as the Lone Ranger pointing what appeared to be a gun at another man, officer Frank Lomangino chased and apprehended the “gunman,” who actually had a ratchet wrapped in a bandanna. Minutes later, he discovered that the would-be robber was in cahoots with the apparent victim, and both had planned to rob the latter of his company’s cash. The two are officially charged with third-degree grand larceny, with more charges expected—one of which should be a citation for recycling a Lone Ranger costume only one week after Halloween. 

And in Bedford-Stuyvesant, an under-funded youth baseball league suffered a crushing loss when $3,500 worth of equipment was stolen. Vandals took bats, gloves and loads of other equipment from a locked storage shed at Herbert Von King Park. The Inner City Sports baseball league (started in 2002 as a way to keep kids off the streets in some of the city’s more dangerous neighborhoods) will have a tough time recovering from the losses. The season may even have to start late next year, that is, unless local kids don’t opt to play for the upstart Delinquent Hoodlums league, which experienced a sudden windfall of new equipment.