First: if you evict them from public housing (federal law prohibits level 2 and 3 sex offenders from living in Housing Authority apartments), where are they going to go? Is it  safer for them to live in apartments not maintained by the city? Will children be safer if they are homeless? Obviously not.

Second: We know this is a terribly old-fashioned thing to say, but don’t sex offenders who have paid their debt to society, have civil rights? Do we know how many of them won’t break the law again; thus, are no longer a danger to society? Take, for example, the case of ex-New York Ranger Billy Tibbetts who, in March 1994, pled guilty to one of three charges of statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl at an outdoor drinking party in Scituate, Mass., in 1992, when he was 17. When Tibbetts was with Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, he had to register with the State of Pennsylvania as a sex offender. We don’t condone teens getting shit-faced and having sex, but prosecuting them for rape seems absurd.

You can say the same for the Kansas law prohibiting virtually all sexual activity by people under age 16. The law required that health care professionals and educators must report such behavior to state authorities. Clearly, this will stop many — or all but the dumbest — teenagers from seeking contraception or treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. Twelve states ban sex under a certain age — 16, 17 or 18 — regardless of the age difference between partners, according to the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Meanwhile, other studies suggest that 30 percent of teenagers under 16 have had sexual intercourse, and an additional 20 percent are doing oral sex or genital fondling.

Under the laws of those twelve states, all of these kids are sex offenders and could, potentially, be evicted from New York City public housing.

Cops: the new Wallmart stockers. Having slaved at the Board of Education for a number of nightmare years, we could have told Police commissioner Raymond Kelly the obvious–that cops making a maximum $59,588 will eventually head for Long Island, where police salaries top out at $90,000.

Dumbest sports story of the week: Much boo-hooing these past days over Willie Randolph not getting an extension on his $800,000 contract. Now he has–a three-year deal at $2 million per, plus, we expect, incentives. Whoopde-fucking-do. Randolph is a Yankee in Mets clothing. His Joe Torre impersonation–dour, sober, keep-calm-at-all-costs demeanor supposedly brings dignity to the game.

Please give us a break.

Memo to sports writers who believe and write this garbage: major-leaguers are idiot savants. They have god-given talent and teeny-weeny brains. They have nothing original to say about anything–and if someone does get original now and then–e.g. Gary Sheffield–he gets sqashed faster than an uppity cockroach.

Earth to everyone: Randolph got $2 million per annum for not making the series.

“BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!

“What has happened is the complete breakdown of life as we knew it.

“Many New York families … have had to give up the pleasure of a leisurely stroll in the park at dusk, the Saturday visit to the playground with their families, the bike ride at dawn – or just sitting on their stoops – given them up as hostages to a world ruled by the law of the streets, as roving bands of wild criminals roam our neighborhoods dispensing their own vicious brand of twisted hatred on whomever they encounter. At what point did we cross the line from the fine and noble pursuit of genuine civil liberties to the reckless and dangerously permissive atmosphere which allows criminals of every age to beat and rape a helpless woman and then laugh at her family’s anguish? And why do they laugh? They laugh because they know that soon, very soon, they will be returned to the streets to rape and maim and kill once again – and yet face no great personal risk to themselves.

“Mayor Koch has stated that hate and rancor should be removed from our hearts. I do not think so. I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes … Yes, Mayor Koch, I want to hate these murderers and I always will … I am looking to punish them … I no longer want to understand their anger. I want them to understand our anger. I want them to be afraid.

“Let our politicians give back our police department’s power to keep us safe. Unshackle them from the constant chant of ‘police brutality’ which every petty criminal hurls immediately at an officer who has just risked his or her life to save another’s. We must cease our continuous pandering to the criminal population … send a message loud and clear to those who would murder our citizens and terrorize New York -

“BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY

AND BRING BACK OUR POLICE!”

Trump’s wish came true. The ad inflamed the public’s rage, the boys were convicted and served prison sentences. Only they were innocent.

Lynell Hancock, in the Columbia Journalism Review, sums up the aftermath:

What re-opened the case and all its old wounds was another confession, this one backed up by DNA tests. Semen found inside the victim and on her sock had always been explained as belonging to a sixth mystery member of the young gang. It turned out to belong to a man named Matias Reyes, a thirty-one-year-old serial rapist. Reyes had a brutal record; he was infamous for gouging out the eyes of his victims.

In prison for a murder and a series of rapes, Reyes confessed in January 2002 to beating and raping the jogger in 1989, all alone. The kids, now young men who have all served their prison sentences, did not know him.

If Donald apologizes, says he was wrong, hires all five young men for The Apprentice, then maybe we’ll let him kiss our fat, hairy Jewish ass.

New assault rap for Busta Rhymes. Another reason why “rap” is short for “crap.” According to cops, Rhymes beat up a driver who had the balls to ask for some back pay. As we reported here a few months back, Rhymes, champion of the underdog, is refusing to help cops find the perps who shot his bodyguard, Israel Ramirez.

City cop finds raising her six kids so hard, she looks forward to foot patrol. Now she’ s on the popular TV show “Nanny 911.” Reminds us of the interview for our first cabbie job. Dick the manager asked what we did before. Stupidly, we mentioned our kindergarten teaching experience. Dick goes, “Driving cab ain’t no kindergarten.” Uh, Dick, driving cab is a whole lot easier.

A real hero. Everyone loves Wesley Autrey, the guy who rescued a stranger who’d fallen on the subway tracks. Now the city’s giving him a year pass on the subway and his family a trip to Disney World.

Oh shut up. New York City opera diva calls her night with a few bedbugs “a terrifying experience.”

We liked new governor Eliot Spitzer, we really did, until washed-up, Christmas-song yodeling has-been sell-out James Taylor performed at the inauguration.

Shakur (originally Joanne Chesimard) was convicted of the crime in 1973, (some students, along with prominent hip-hoppers such as Mos Def claim Shakur was wrongfully convicted), but after a dramatic jailbreak, fled to Cuba where she recently announced that she would hand over one million ASSATA t-shirts “to the person or persons who successfully apprehend US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and bring him to face war criminal charges at the International Criminal Court.

Morales, jailed for bombings in New York, was pardoned by President Clinton. He too lives in Cuba.

Although we really hate to, we must give you a quote from The Storeroom of Screeching Leftist Ideologues (you don’t have to read this): “We consider Assata Shakur to be one of the people who were wrongfully and purposefully framed for her activities,” said Igwe Williams, 27, who helps run the Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Community and Student Center, and, being born in 1979, never endured endlessly impenetrable anti-war speeches from future bond traders and white shoe partners. “We consider her a hero and a role model for standing up for our people and putting her life on the line.”

Last week, lawyers representing the City College students and community members asked a federal judge to issue an injunction permitting the students to continue to operate the Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Community and Student Center at City College.

This week, Recharger, representing himself, will ask a judge to issue an injunction forbidding all speeches by anyone who thinks killing–cops or Iraqi babies–is sometimes ok.

– Annie Lika

Bronx grandmother murdered by asphyxiation: we guarantee, this is the last you’ll hear of this story that merited a teensy box on page 16 of the Daily News. Thugs tied up 65-year-old Teresa Reyes, a day-care center cook, ransacked her apartment and left her to die. This is a wild guess, but we don’t think Rosie O’Donnell will skip skewering Donald Trump for giving teen beauty queen Tara Conner a second chance in favor of this story.

Giuliani Running: our ex-mayor, whose pre-9/11 mistakes might have cost the lives of more than 100 firefighters as well as approximately 1000 office workers (read Dwyer and Flynn’s 102 Minutes), yet emerged from the disaster a national hero, is throwing fund-raisers, presumedly for a presidential run. Our only comfort is that John Lindsay, the last New York mayor to run for president, crashed and burned in the Florida primary.

Let’s start with the four black teenagers who, this past June 26,  lost in the neighborhood riding their bikes, were attacked by a mob shouting racial slurs. Three managed to escape, but the all-white mob, according to the DA’s indictment, beat the fourth and stole his bike. A passing driver rescued the victim and drove him home.

Then a second attack occurred on March 30th, 2005 in a public park just outside Gerritsen Beach. A group of black girls from Marine Park Junior High School allegedly  kicked, punched and shouted slurs at a group of white girls from St. Edmund Preparatory High School. The black girls were charged with misdemeanors, but the parents of the private school girls was the assault classified as a race crime due to the slurs.

The worst occurred on October 13th when, police say,  Michael J. Sandy, 29, gay and black, died after a group of white teens from Gerritsen Beach beat and robbed him. The attackers, after exchanging AOL instant messages with the victim, lured him to a deserted area of Brooklyn, robbed and beat him, then chased him onto the Belt Parkway, where he was struck by an oncoming car. He died in Brookdale University Hospital five days later. The men were indicted and charged with hate crimes that could get them 25 years in prison.
While Recharger gets that a lone wolf could plan and carry out a truly moronic crime, he  doesn’t get how a group of men have such pathetically-empty lives that they’d take all that time to write emails, meet and beat a defenseless, then chase the guy into traffic.

What, The Playboy Channel wasn’t on that night?

– Robert O’Brien

Yawn, another murder: As the media continues to recoil in horror at Alan Hevesi’s chutzpah to spend state money on a driver for his very sick wife, it all but ignores the murder of another insignificant deli clerk in Brooklyn. Ahmed Shaibi, a Yemeni immigrant, was murdered while fending off a gang of thugs who, according to cops, have robbed a string of other groceries.

Armstrong declares NYC Marathon much much harder than Tour De France. What are we to make of 7-time Tour De France winner Lance Armstrong, at his post-NYC Marathon press conference, declaring “I can tell you, 20 years of pro sports, endurance sports, from triathlons to cycling, all of the Tours — even the worst days on the Tours — nothing was as hard as that, and nothing left me feeling the way I feel now, in terms of just sheer fatigue and soreness”? That he forgot the ‘roids in Texas? That competitive bicycling isn’t all that hard? That after dumping Cheryl Crow he’s boinked so many chicks lately that he’s once-magnificent body has withered from alcohol and debauchment?

As part of his review of Ruthie’s, a soul food place in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Famous Fat Dave, ubiquitous food blogger, filmed a homeless guy trying to crash the restaurant for collared greens. Another reason we find the Times increasingly boring.

People who live on traffic-congested blocks have suckier lives. This according to a new, and pretty thorough study by Tranportation Alternatives.

If a nine-year-old is bludgeoned to death, and there’s no one there to hear it, does she die? The non-saga of the bludgeoning death of 9-year-old Mariah Navarro and her mother, Maria River, continues. The two were found dead in their West Harlem apartment two days ago. Yesterday, in an explosion of interest, the girl’s name appearing a whopping 8 times in Google, including another page 24 mention in the New York Post (ex-con boyfriend held i the murders). Recharger realizes it’s so yesterday to complain about racist news coverage, and that it would be so much more fun to talk about the Sky Mirror (81,400 Google hits), or dead Yankee pitcher Corey Lidle (346,000 Google hits), or even Project Runway (3,343,000 hits) than the sad death of a 9-year-old Hispanic girl, but maybe the newsies could find salacious here–torture, sex abuse–to widen coverage?

Why is this not front page news? A couple of theories: Madonna wanting a second Malawi baby is more important; girl and mom are the wrong color; murder occurred in a Harlem housing project; murder apparently involved no sex or torture; a possible suspect is dead mom’s boyfriend–nothing particularly fascinating there; the wrong-way DWI driver who decapitated a 7-year-old flower girl was convicted of murder yesterday; so-called terror lawyer Lynne Stewart got off with “wrist slap” 28 month sentence; Mets are in a do-or-die playoff game tonight. Ergo: murder of innocent Hispanic girl barely worth a paragrapha.