LI CRIME BRIEFS

BETHPAGE/Robbery suspect sought

Eighth Squad detectives are looking for a man who robbed a newspaper delivery person at gunpoint Thursday in Bethpage, Nassau County police said.

At about 5:30 a.m., as the victim was delivering papers from his car on Carrie Avenue, a man with a black handgun approached him and ordered him out of the car, police said.

The armed man took the deliveryman's wallet, with an unspecified amount of cash, and then ran east on Carrie Avenue, where he got into a red Nissan Maxima.

Police could not say which newspaper was being delivered, but a company spokesman said Thursday it was not Newsday.

Police ask anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers, 800-244-8477. All calls will be kept confidential.

-- Gary Dymski

EAST MEADOW/Police: Driver 'brushed' cop

Nassau County police were looking Thursday for the driver of a vehicle that "brushed" an officer in East Meadow during a traffic stop, a police said.

The Nassau motorcycle officer was not injured in the incident at about 2:30 p.m. on Diamond Avenue just west of the Wantagh Parkway, police said.

Police said the officer had pulled over two vehicles and was questioning one driver when the second driver suddenly put his Ford Explorer into reverse, striking the officer's motorcycle.

The Explorer then drove off, brushing the officer with the driver's side mirror, police said.

-- Gary Dymski

UNIONDALE/Cop injured in teen's arrest

A gun-toting teen broke a police officer's thumb as he tried to flee officers attempting to arrest him on a street in Uniondale, Nassau County police said.

The officer, whose identity was not released, was taken to a hospital for treatment.

Police said the suspect, Shadrach Ford, 17, of 555 Northern Pkwy. in Uniondale, had grabbed the officer's thumb during the arrest Wednesday and broke it. The teen was charged with second-degree and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon, second-degree assault and resisting arrest.

He was to be arraigned Thursday in First District Court in Hempstead.

Police said officers spotted Ford in possession of a handgun near Argyle and Davis avenues at 1:48 p.m.

But when the officers attempted to stop Ford for questioning, he fled, police said.

The officers caught Ford on Leonard Avenue.

-- John Valenti

HEMPSTEAD/Woman held in robbery

An Elmont woman took a kitchen knife and threatened a man and a woman in a Hempstead restaurant before grabbing the woman's car keys and fleeing, police said.

No one was injured in the incident Wednesday night at Wings and Things on Fulton Avenue. But Nassau County police said Jessica Morrow, 28, of 164 Biltmore Ave. in Elmont, was under arrest Thursday morning, charged with first-degree robbery, two counts of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and second-degree menacing.

She was to be arraigned Thursday in First District Court in Hempstead.

Police could not immediately say what sparked the incident, which took place at 8:20 p.m.

After threatening the victims, police said, Morrow took car keys to a 1999 Mercedes-Benz belonging to the woman. It was not clear if Morrow took the car, but police said she fled afterward and was arrested in the parking lot of the Mercy Hospital Medical Center in Rockville Centre.

-- John Valenti