While Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly endlessly tout the value of Manhattan’s "ring of steel," modeled after the security infrastructure of London’s financial district, they reveal little as to its role tracking car traffic in the city.  Both back the department’s Domain Awareness System (DAS), which can track individuals or incidents (e.g., a suspicious package) through live video feeds from some 3,000 CCTV cameras, 2,600 radiation substances detectors, check license plate numbers, pull up crime reports and cross-check all information against criminal and terrorist databases.

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Naeem Davis, 30, was taken into custody for questioning Tuesday after security video showed a man fitting the suspect's description working with street vendors near Rockefeller Center. Police said Davis made statements implicating himself in Ki-Suck Han's death.

Davis was arrested on a second-degree murder charge. He was in custody, and it wasn't immediately clear if he had a lawyer. It also wasn't clear when he would appear in court. He has several prior arrests in New York and Pennsylvania on mostly minor charges including drug possession.

Witnesses told investigators they saw a man talking to himself Monday afternoon before he approached the 58-year-old Han of Queens at the Times Square station, got into an altercation with him and pushed him into the train's path.

The New York Post published a photo on its front page Tuesday of Han with his head turned toward the train, his arms reaching up but unable to climb off the tracks in time. It was shot by freelance photographer R. Umar Abbasi, who was waiting to catch a train.

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The New York Times found the homeless man in the picture -- identified him as Jeffrey Hillman -- wandering in Manhattan Sunday night, once again barefoot. He told the paper, when asked about the boots he had been gifted, "they are worth a lot of money." He also noted that despite being grateful for DePrimo's gift, he wanted a "piece of the pie" with regards to his Internet fame, as his image was posted "without permission."

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story stated that Hillman had sold his boots; this has not been verified and The New York Times reports that Hillman in fact hid the boots.

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Officer Larry Deprimo, the cop who gifted the boots and reportedly told the recipient, "I have these size 12 boots for you, they are all-weather. Let’s put them on and take care of you,” showed the sort of human kindness worthy of sharing online and "IRL" (in real life). Little wonder the NYPD would use the photo of Deprimo as an image boost over social media. There is, however, something galling about the viral celebration of the image as something representative of NYPD's attitude toward the homeless when there is an ongoing battle by homeless advocates in New York to combat mistreatment by cops. Equally, it's worth noting that images of severe police brutality get far less online attention. Meanwhile, reporters and citizen journalists have repeatedly in the past year been physically prevented from filming NYPD aggression.

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"Over the last 15 years, New York City police have arrested more than 500,000 people – most of them young blacks or Hispanics – on misdemeanor charges of possessing small amounts of marijuana in public view. While Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the police have said the arrests have helped reduce violent crime, they have never specified how," HRW noted.

“Public officials need to explain exactly how placing thousands of people in cuffs each year for possessing pot reduces violent crime," said Jamie Fellner, senior adviser to the US Program at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report.

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All three victims were shot with the same .22 caliber handgun, all three were immigrants from the Middle East, all three worked alone without security cameras and all three businesses have the number 8 in their address, authorities say.

The latest victim, Rahmatollah Vahidipour, 78, a Jewish immigrant from Iran, was fatally shot Friday in his business, She She Boutique on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. That homicide followed the Aug. 6 killing of Isaac Kadare, 59, a Jewish immigrant from Egypt, who was fatally shot in his Bensonhurst store, Amazing 99 Cent Deal.

The spree began with the July 6 killing of Mohammed Gebeli, 65, an Egyptian immigrant and a Muslim, found murdered in his business, Valentino Fashion Inc., in Bay Ridge. Detectives are “exploring a few similarities among the three murders,” The New York Times reported in Sunday’s editions.

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Valle kept files on his computer about more than 100 women, containing a photo and address for each, according to the complaint. Valle allegedly researched methods of “disabling and drugging women, and agreeing with at least one other individual to kidnap a woman in exchange for a sum of money.”

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The students were staging a sit-in protest at the bank headquarters, "demanding full disclosure of the bank’s anonymous political expenditures," reported an announcement from 99Rise, the anti-corruption group of which the three young people are members. "The students, who delivered a petition to the bank over three weeks ago articulating their demand, refused to leave the bank’s premises until the requested information was handed over to the public.  The bank instead chose to shut down the entire 60 floor building have them arrested," the release read. A live Twitter feed from the group reporting on the  small sit-in noted that police set up barricades around the building, closing entrances to the public.

99 Rise describes itself as "a new anti-corruption movement to get Big Money out of American politics." The three students have reportedly been taken to a police station in the Bronx.

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Shamiur Rahman, a 19-year-old American of Bengali descent who has now denounced his work as an informant, said police told him to embrace a strategy called "create and capture." He said it involved creating a conversation about jihad or terrorism, then capturing the response to send to the NYPD. For his work, he earned as much as $1,000 a month and goodwill from the police after a string of minor marijuana arrests.

"We need you to pretend to be one of them," Rahman recalled the police telling him. "It's street theater."

Rahman said he now believes his work as an informant against Muslims in New York was "detrimental to the Constitution." After he disclosed to friends details about his work for the police — and after he told the police that he had been contacted by the AP — he stopped receiving text messages from his NYPD handler, "Steve," and his handler's NYPD phone number was disconnected.

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Video of the arrest caught on a security camera was passed to a local news site and soon garnered viral attention. On Monday, according to the AP, The Brooklyn District Attorney's Office said all charges were being dismissed against Halevi. Meanwhile, "the officers are under investigation by the New York Police Department's internal affairs unit and the district attorney's office," the AP reported.

Watch the video of Halevi's arrest below via CrownHeights.info (Warning: Graphic):

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Although sources confirmed with CrownHeights.info that Halevi had been sleeping in the space for a month with permission, one security guard, unaware of the arrangement, called the police. The guard later told the New York Daily News that he regretted making the call.

According to Gothamist, "[Halevi] was also pepper sprayed during the arrest, [and] was charged with assaulting a police officer, trespassing, resisting arrest and harassment. He's currently out on bail and faces up to five years in prison for assaulting an officer." The NYPD have yet to issue comment.

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In one incident ruled improper, over 200 antiwar and anti-capitalist demonstrators were kettled by police in lower Manhattan and mass arrested. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday's ruling relating to the police response:

City attorneys argued that officers had "group probable cause" to make the arrests, meaning the crowd was acting as one. On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Sullivan in Manhattan rejected the city's theory and ruled the arrests on Fulton Street illegal.

"Based on the undisputed facts, and particularly the video of the Fulton Street march and arrests, the court finds that there was not even arguable probable cause to make those arrests," the judge ruled.

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Rather than target established street gangs involved in the drug trade, the reinforcements will focus mainly on "looser associations of younger men who identify themselves by the block they live on, or on which side of a housing development they reside," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in prepared remarks.

"Their loyalty is to their friends living in a relatively small area and their rivalries are based not on narcotics trafficking or some other entrepreneurial interest, but simply on local turf," Kelly added. "In other words, `You come in to my backyard and you get hurt. You diss my crew and you pay the price.'"

The remarks were provided in advance of Kelly's appearance Tuesday in San Diego at a gathering of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Under the new plan, the NYPD gang unit will work more closely with other divisions that monitor social media for signs of trouble.

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NYC's population is a little over 8 million. That means that there are 4.18 police officers per 1,000 people. By comparison, Los Angeles, the second largest city in the U.S. with 3.8 million people, has only 9,895 officers--a ratio of 2.6 police per 1,000 people.

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The controversial pro-Israel ads, sponsored by Islamophobic blogger Pamela Geller, equate Muslims with "savages." As Salon noted yesterday, anonymous New Yorkers have already made a point of defacing a number of the posters around the city.

A pink coat-clad Eltahawy, who had two arms broken by Egyptian police when covering a protest in Cairo last year, began spraying the offending poster with hot pink spray paint. As she did, another women carrying a camera accosted her and stood in front of the poster, decrying Eltahawy for undermining freedom of expression.

"This is freedom of expression," retorted Eltahawy, as she continued to spray the ad, even while the other woman -- later identified as Pamela Geller supporter Pamel Hall -- placed her body in front of the poster to protect it.

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The ads, funded by professional Islamophobe Pam Gellar and her group The American Defense Freedom Initiative, were permitted to go up by a federal judge despite opposition from the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA).

The Post reports that "the NYPD quietly increased its presence at the stations with the ads," although NYPD spokesperson Paul Browne denied the claims. He told the Post that there had been no changes in security or staffing because of the posters.

Increased security or no, a number of the ads have already been defaced by anonymous New Yorkers. Metro New York reports that large stickers bearing the work "Racist" have been pasted over the posters, which suggest that Israel's opposition in the Middle East are "savages."

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Now there's a story twist begging for inclusion in any Occupy screenplays (no doubt being penned): one of the pepper-sprayed women fell in love with the volunteer street medic who helped her that day, and they are expecting a baby.

As New York Times CityRoom editor Andy Newman reported:

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However, on Sunday a group claiming Anonymous affiliation released 60 hours of TARU footage from the night of the Zuccotti Park eviction on Nov. 15. The footage is considered particularly relevant in fleshing out the NYPD versus Occupy narrative, since both mainstream and citizen journalists and videographers were forcibly kept away from the park as officers dismantled the encampment and rounded up protesters that night.

A release introducing the footage dump notes, "The NYPD denied freedom of the press the night of the Zuccotti raid by kicking out media and keeping them two blocks away … Much of the video being released is edited by the NYPD, and at times edits are quite blatant, probably trying to cover up their brutality."

The release urges that readers share the TARU footage and take note of any glitches or time stamp changes, which might suggest selective editing. "We ask for an unedited version of the tapes," it notes.

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“Fingerprint examiners typically testify in the language of absolute certainty,” professor Jennifer Mnookin at the University of California Los Angeles has written. But like many other claims for forensic science, the assertion that fingerprints are unique lacked a solid scientific basis and now is viewed with new caution.

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Also characteristic of an Occupy day of action, protesters had smartphones at the ready to capture every twist, turn and tussle. Here are images from Twitter users, which give a sense of events Downtown.

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