York City Police

New York City police arrested two Maryland men yesterday who are accused of robbing and abducting a Crown gas station attendant in Eldersburg on Tuesday.Jerry Lee Powell, 31 of Sykesville and Anthony Frank Brigandi, 28, of Marriottsville were captured when their car crashed after a 36-block chase through Manhattan yesterday, said Detective Dwight Cunningham, a spokesman for New York City police.Officers said the two also are wanted in Schuylkill County, Pa., in the abduction yesterday of a 72-year-old woman and her 12-year-old granddaughter.

NEW YORK -- Behind the 30 percent drop in murders and shootings reported in New York City this year is a startling development: Drug dealers and gang members have apparently begun to leave their guns at home.Police department and federal law enforcement officials say that gunplay has decreased from the South Bronx to the Rockaways, partly as a result of the tightening of local and federal gun-control regulations and crackdowns on youth gangs.But more than anything else, federal and local officials say, it is the increase in police friskings for such minor violations as loud radio playing and public beer drinking that has discouraged people from carrying unregistered guns.

NEW YORK -- They've waited 54 years, and now they'll have to wait two more days. Or maybe five more. Or -- heaven help us -- maybe another half-century.Maybe forever.This was to be the night -- the start of the party, the end of the curse. Only problem was, the New York Rangers forgot to win. And now their tortured history is an issue once more.The Vancouver Canucks trail this series, three games to two. They can tie it by winning at home tomorrow. They can win it if they get to Game 7 at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.

NEW YORK -- Guardian Angel founder Curtis Sliwa, still wearing a bandage on an arm broken in an April beating, was shot and seriously wounded early yesterday after boarding a cab near his home in Lower Manhattan.Mr. Sliwa, 38, underwent five hours of surgery at Bellevue Hospital, but a bullet remained lodged in his abdomen.Mr. Sliwa was listed in serious condition last night, but he was expected to make a full recovery.Two members of his volunteer anti-crime brigade, with their signature red berets, and a New York city police officer were standing outside his hospital room.

A convicted murderer, who less than 24 hours earlier had escaped from a Maryland pre-release program, has been charged with the rape of a 14-year-old girl in New York City, authorities said.Garson Jackson, arrested in Manhattan yesterday with two other men, walked away Tuesday from the minimum-security Southern Maryland Pre-release Unit in Charles County. Jackson, who is 42 and from Dundalk, escaped after serving 24 years of a life prison term for the 1967 rape and fatal stabbing of a Baltimore County woman.

The videotaped images of Los Angeles policemen taking turns clubbing and kicking a lone suspect with apparent abandon suggest for Dr. James McGee the animal instincts that surface when humans acting in groups get swept into a frenzy."