Puerto Rican Day Parade marred by knifing and 175 busts

Jimmy Vielkind:

Fifth Ave. sizzled with boricua pride yesterday as hundreds of thousands celebrated at the Puerto Rican Day Parade - but the fun was marred when a cop was slashed and gang members tried to crash the march.

There were also three stabbings as cops made 175 arrests.

Here is what happened:

Three people were stabbed when a fight broke out at Fifth Ave. and W. 51st St. around 12:45 p.m. Cops said the injuries were minor and two attackers were arrested.

About an hour later, cops moved in to break up a group of about 150 Latin Kings gang members who gathered on Sixth Ave. near Central Park South and apparently planned to join the parade en masse.

Throngs of men wearing black-and-gold Latin Kings shirts linked arms and prepared to march when cops moved in to arrest them. Police said they recovered one gun and several knives.

"We just come over here to enjoy our day," said King Terra, 32, a self-proclaimed gang member from Jamaica, Queens. "They got arrested for no reason."

The cop was injured about 3:30 p.m. as two groups of youths faced off on Madison Ave. and E. 85th St., about a block from the end of the route.

Cops flooded the area and one officer was slashed on the hand. He was taken to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital and was listed in stable condition. The slashing suspect was arrested along with 18 other teens involved in the brawl.

Paradegoers denounced the violence - the first major incidents since the attacks on women after the 2000 parade - as the work of troublemakers.

"It ruins it," said Juan Coriano of Haverstraw, Rockland County. "It's a shame."

Most property owners listened to Mayor Bloomberg and avoided boarding up windows along the route, as in previous years. Some paradegoers, however, were still rankled to see wood covering the bottom-floor windows of some buildings along the wealthy strip.

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