Cop Shot, Mobster Nearly Strangled at Brooklyn Restaurant
Aug. 20, 1961 - In Brooklyn last night, Patrolman Melvin Blei, 35 years old, was seriously wounded in the face when he was shot outside of the Sahara Restaurant on Utica Avenue. A hoodlum had been beaten in the bar a few minutes earlier in what appeared to the police to have been an attempted underworld execution. The hoodlum was not seriously injured, but the police said that a rope (pictured in detective's hand) had been placed around his neck. He was identified as Lawrence