THE BRONX
* An emotionally disturbed man blasted himself with a shotgun after taking his wife and three children hostage, police said.
The man, who was gravely injured, was threatening to kill himself at his home on Waring Street in Bronxdale.
When police arrived early yesterday, the man locked himself inside his second-floor apartment.
While officers were awaiting the arrival of a hostage negotiator, they heard a thud and broke down the door, cops said.
They found the man had shot himself in the torso with the 12-gauge shotgun. He was taken to Jacobi Hospital in critical condition.
The man’s 48-year-old wife and his children, two daughters aged 14 and 15 and a son aged 4, were not hurt.
* An apparently drunken man, who was asleep behind the wheel, was charged with vehicular assault after he sideswiped a police officer who woke him up, cops said.
The incident occurred at 10 p.m. Saturday on Southern Boulevard in the Belmont section.
Officer James Walker and his partner saw Meri Patnai, 29, of Dudley Street, sleeping behind the wheel of his parked car.
When Walker tapped on the driver’s side window to awaken Patnai, he took off, hitting Walker in the leg, police said.
Walker was treated at Jacobi Hospital and released. Patnai was arrested and charged with DWI as well as vehicular assault.
* A Bronx police sergeant was involved in an auto accident while responding to a call, police said.
The sergeant had his lights and sirens on when his patrol car was struck by another car at Southern Boulevard and 178th Street in East Tremont.
The Fire Department had to extricate both men from their vehicles. The sergeant was in serious but stable condition at Jacobi Hospital. The other driver was in stable condition at St. Barnabas Hospital.
* A man struck and critically injured another man during a fist fight, police said.
MANHATTAN
* Two women were raped and robbed at knifepoint in Harlem early yesterday, police said.
The victims, aged 24 and 25, were walking on West 136th Street when they were approached by a man about 21 years old who waved a knife.
The attacker forced the women into an apartment building on 136th Street, where he sexually abused and sodomized them before taking their money and fleeing.
The women are in stable condition at St. Luke’s Hospital.
* Cops searched the Queens home of a correction officer and recovered a gun used when one woman was raped and two others sodomized by three men in a Harlem apartment last June 30, police said yesterday.
On July 15, Officer Keith Davis was arrested and charged with sodomizing one of the woman.
He was immediately suspended from the department. On Saturday, Davis’ home was searched and the gun was recovered, cops said.
Cops said he was not the one who brandished it during the sexual assaults. He was charged with fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
QUEENS
* Three Jewish teens were arrested for harassing three 13-year-old Catholic girls, police said yesterday.
The teens, aged 16, approached the girls at Beach 129th Street in the Rockaways at 9:52 p.m. Saturday.
Cops said they pushed one of the girls while making anti-Catholic remarks. None of the three was injured. The boys were charged with aggravated harassment.