On September 18, 2025, SSA 3 Ricardo Bellevue, assigned to Benjamin Cardozo High School, was instrumental in stopping a school threat by recovering a firearm. The suspected student posted on Instagram that he was going to “shoot up the school.” L3 Bellevue conducted a search of the perp and his book bag. A firearm was observed in the suspected perpetrator’s backpack. PO Williams confirmed it to be an actual firearm. The perp was arrested without incident. A job well done (!) by SSA 3 Ricardo Bellevue for his quick action to prevent undue harm to the school community.

Once upon a time, several decades ago, I took a creative writing class. I don’t believe anything I wrote was particularly memorable, but one of the things that has stayed with me after all this time was the way the instructor urged students to eliminate oxymorons and redundancies in stories they were writing. With very rare exceptions, she felt they cluttered and cheapened what could otherwise be good and even powerful work.

Este año, la gran pregunta que hará Santa no será “¿te has portado bien o mal?”, sino más bien: “¿cómo han afrontado usted y sus seres queridos tantos desafíos y situaciones adversas?”.