14-year-old Avonte Oquendo left his school in Queens without permission and was later found dead. “A law passed after his death required schools to install audible door alarms.” [Associated Press]
Update Sept. 17: Original link above now broken, but many other links to the same AP coverage remain active as of this writing [NBC New York, Insurance Journal, Chicago Tribune, WPIX, etc.] The New York Post’s coverage is here.
“Bronx ‘professional plaintiff’ has worked for 11 companies since 2007 and has sued every single one” [New York Post] “Maor’s [wage-and-hour] suits have all been filed as class actions in which he sought damages on behalf of himself and up to 450-plus co-workers at a time.”
The New York Times has a very good editorial calling for reform of the state’s crazy gravity-knife law, under which the NYPD has arrested thousands of stagehands, carpenters, construction workers and others observed in possession of work knives that are legal almost everywhere else in the country. I wrote about the issue for Cato a year and a half ago; more here.
A New York City personal injury attorney cultivated a high profile as a columnist and law professor, but prosecutors say he stole millions from clients [New York Times]
Under New York City’s stiff gun control laws, it can be famously hard to obtain a carry permit from the NYPD’s license division — at least, famously hard if you’re an ordinary resident without cash or connections to spare. Now, scandal [DNAInfo, New York Daily News]:
A Brooklyn businessman has been charged by the feds with obtaining gun permits for friends and other businessmen by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to NYPD officers in its License Division, authorities said on Monday….
In all, Lichtenstein boasted that he obtained 150 weapons for his friends and associates, charging them about $18,000 each time, and giving $6,000 of the payout to his police connections. If true, that means corrupt officers raked in as much as $900,000.
It’s yet another reminder, Ira Stoll points out, of the general rule that draconian regulation begets corruption — and a caution to those who propose to inflict NYC-style regulation on other parts of the country.