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New York Explosion: Two Bodies Found, Believed To Be Those Of Missing Men

New York Explosion: Two Bodies Found, Believed To Be Those Of Missing Men

By Kurtis Lee and Lauren Raab, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Two bodies that were recovered Sunday from the site of an explosion in New York City’s East Village are believed to be those of two missing men, and no others are expected to be found, officials said as searchers continued to dig through rubble three days after the blast.

The first body was found about 1 p.m. local time and taken to the city’s medical examiner’s office, according to the New York City Police Department. The second was found about 3:45 p.m., police said. No identification was released, and police did not provide the victims’ genders or any other such information.

As of Friday, two men remained unaccounted for after the explosion, which may have been caused by someone inappropriately accessing a gas line in the building where it occurred, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

According to The Associated Press, the missing men were Moises Lucon, 26, who worked at a sushi restaurant in the building, and Nicholas Figueroa, 23, a bowling alley worker who was at the restaurant on a date.

A spokesman for Figueroa’s family told reporters Sunday afternoon that Figueroa’s body was one of the two found, the AP said.

Later on Sunday, New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro seemed to corroborate that, although he did not name or describe the victims.

“The feeling is everyone who had been reported missing has now been found,” Nigro told reporters. “The likelihood of anyone else being here is very small.”

De Blasio said Friday that 22 people had been injured, four of them critically. Six members of the New York Fire Department were among those hurt. Bellevue Hospital received four patients injured by the blast. One patient, a man, remains hospitalized in good condition, a hospital spokesman said Sunday. The others, one woman and two men, were treated and discharged Friday, according to the hospital.

The explosion came one year after a gas-related blast leveled two buildings in East Harlem and killed eight people. The March 2014 explosion occurred shortly after someone called the utility company to report a gas odor outside one of the buildings.

(Times staff writers Christine Mai-Duc and James Queally contributed to this report.)

(c)2015 Los Angeles Times, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Photo: Event Photos NYC, Flickr

Settlement Reached In FDNY Discrimination Suit

Settlement Reached In FDNY Discrimination Suit

By Matthew Chayes And Gary Dymski, Newsday

NEW YORK — New York City has agreed to settle a civil-rights lawsuit accusing its fire department of intentionally discriminating in hiring minorities.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and the U.S. Justice Department, in announcing the agreement Tuesday, said the city will pay about $98 million to resolve allegations the FDNY engaged in a pattern or practice of employment discrimination against African-American and Hispanic applicants for the entry-level firefighter position by using two discriminatory written tests in 1999 and 2002.

The agreement in principle will be incorporated into a consent decree that is subject to a fairness hearing and must be approved by the district court, according to a release Tuesday from the Justice Department.

The lawsuit originated in 2007 when the department filed its complaint alleging that the FDNY’s use of the two written tests violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by disproportionately screening out African-American and Hispanic applicants for the entry-level firefighter position, the release said.

The settlement is yet another break with the Bloomberg administration for the de Blasio administration.

Under the settlement, the city will pay money to applicants alleging FDNY discrimination, as well as enact new policies intended to curb future discrimination and address allegations of past discrimination, said Jen Nessel, a spokeswoman for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents a group of black firefighters who allege FDNY discrimination.

The settlement also includes back pay, Nessel said.

The settlement was the latest about-face on civil-rights lawsuits for the fledgling de Blasio administration.

Earlier this year, de Blasio’s lawyers settled a Bloomberg-era suit in which civil rights lawyers accused the NYPD of stopping, questioning and frisking mostly black and Latino young men, 90 percent of whom were not arrested or issued tickets. Weeks later, the administration dropped another Bloomberg-era lawsuit, one seeking to block a law allowing suits against individual cops for racial profiling.

“The brave men and women of the FDNY work tirelessly to keep us safe from harm’s way — and our administration is committed to ensuring every New Yorker who seeks to take on this heroic role has a fair opportunity to join the ranks,” de Blasio said in a news release Tuesday.

He also said the settlement will move New York City one step closer to his administration’s goal of “promoting diversity and equal access in every sector across our five boroughs.”

De Blasio, as a mayoral candidate last year, criticized the diversity of the police and fire departments.

The case was set to go to trial March 31 at federal district court in Brooklyn.

The FDNY was 84 percent white as of December, FDNY spokeswoman Elisheva Zakheim said earlier this month. It was 92 percent white in 2002, she said. The city was 44 percent white in the 2010 census.

Photo: Cisc1970 via Flickr