Stabbing on Niagara Street
A city man was stabbed in the chest recently after stopping his car in the 2200 block of Niagara Street to try and break up an altercation nvolving a group of black males.
Police were called to the emergency room at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, where the man went for treatment following the incident. He said he didn’t know any of those involved in the altercation and doubted he could identify his assailant.
An investigation into the incident is continuing, police said.
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First time thief busted
Chadwick Estes must be the unluckiest thief ever to attempt a petty heist. The 48-year-old Estes was nabbed by store security recently at the Rite Aid store on Pine Avenue at Portage Road after stashing a bottle of Pepsi, a chocolate bar and an android cell phone about his person and then attempting to abscond without paying. He was held at the store until police arrived and took him into custody.
“This is my first time stealing and I got caught,” Estes told the arresting officers. His statement was greeted with a healthy dose of skepticism, especially after it was discovered that Estes had an outstanding warrant in North Tonawanda.
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Open container violation?
Niagara Falls has long been known as a lawless city and, over the past 15 years, the Niagara Falls Reporter has covered more than its share of murders, rapes, robberies and conspiracy cases. But never before can we recall reading a police report about an open container violation.
The luckless perpetrator in this case of a cold one gone wrong was Eric S. Evchich, 22, of Michigan Avenue, who was walking down the 2800 block of McKoon Avenue one recent evening with a can of Labatt’s Blue Light clenched in one hand.
Two of the NFPD’s Finest happened to be driving past in a marked patrol car and came to a halt. Knowing he was busted, Evchich tried to get rid of the evidence, tossing the can onto a nearby lawn. The cops not only charged him with violation of the city’s open container ordinance, but with littering as well.
One wonders whether this archaic law against drinking a beer in public gets a special waiver at events such as the Hard Rock concert series or Mayor Paul Dyster’s annual beer fests at the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center or whether police are instructed to just leave well enough alone.
Police later explained that Evchich’s arrest was a part on an operation directed against rowdy Niagara University students whose raucous parties are the subject of numerous neighborhood complaints each and every year.
Some things never change. The celebrated novelist and National Book Award winner John O’Hara was Class Poet at NU in 1924, but failed to graduate after showing up to commencement drunk.
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