The Bronx Ink

A handful of Longwood residents gathered at their latest neighborhood policing meeting Thursday, with their chief complaint being noise in Bill Rainey Park.

“The park needs to close at dusk… it’s not fair to us, every night it’s a concert… I got kids going to school,” said Lisa Thomas, who has been a Longwood resident since 1965.

Noise complaints are a common complaint at these meetings, according to Precinct (41) Sgt. Jonathan Falconi, and also make up 11% of 311 service requests in Longwood over the last ten years, according to NYC Open Data. 

The meetings, dubbed Build the Block, are held monthly. Residents can meet their local police officer, or neighborhood coordination officer (NOC), and share complaints they may have. It is part of former mayor Bill de Blasio’s 2015 vision of ‘neighborhood policing’. In the plan, he announced that precincts would deploy NOC’s in order to address local problems and work closely with communities. 

“[Residents] can call specific [officers]… they know our faces, sometimes we give our personal numbers,” Falconi, who is newly appointed, said.

According to Falconi, the meetings have led to positive changes, such as the “cleaning up” of Bill Rainey Park. He said drinking, public urination and noise are the main concerns about the park. “We make sure to have events at the park so people know it’s safe,” he said. This includes the Build the Block meeting, which is hosted at the park. 

Falconi said police they have helped residents start a homeowner association. “We also try to give them guidance,” he said. He adds that the main objective of the NOC’s is to build a relationship with the community. 

Clifford Muniz, a Longwood resident, did not have a complaint. “I’m here supporting the officers,” he said. Another resident, Edwin Barrieto, attended because he likes to “help the community.”

And, he added, “when I’m with cops, I’m safe.” 

Crime statistics published by the police department show that Longwood has seen a steady increase in crime over the years. Compared to twelve years ago crime has risen by 24.21%. Robbery, felony assault and grand theft of motor vehicles have increased more than 50% over the past two years. 

The parents of a Bronx girl who was sexually assaulted 16 months ago by an NYPD officer grimaced in the gallery yesterday when the judge announced that closure would have to wait at least another month.

Sentencing was expected Wednesday, Sept. 24, for Modesto Alamo, 38, who pleaded guilty in July to sexually abusing, forcibly touching and endangering the welfare of a 13-year-old girl. Alamo resigned from the police force upon his May 24, 2014 arrest. Instead, Judge Laurence E. Busching of the Bronx Supreme Court said he would issue a sentence and determine Alamo’s sex offender category Oct. 23.

Bronx Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Militano petitioned Wednesday for Alamo to be designated a Level 2 sex offender, for “moderate risk or repeat offense,” arguing that his betrayal of a position of trust justified the heightened classification.

Defense lawyer Solomon J. Schepps argued that the victim “was the one who established the relationship in the first place” through a series of non-sexual text messages. Schepps also claimed there is no precedent for holding police officers to the higher standard Militano endorsed. He encouraged a Level 1, “low risk,” designation.

It has been a “lengthy, stressful, disappointing process,” the victim’s mother said in the hallway after yesterday’s hearing. She added that her daughter, now 15, receives counseling and has changed middle schools since the incidents. Although the parents have been fixtures at Alamo hearings, they said they try to shield their daughter from news of the case.

“It is ridiculous that he gets away like it,” said the mother, who sobbed in the courtroom when the prosecutor described the abuse. “He was never in custody.”

Alamo arrived in court in a long-sleeve T-shirt and blue jeans, donning a baseball cap upon leaving the courtroom to obscure photographs of his face. Busching denied a special request from The New York Daily News to photograph today’s proceedings.

Schepps and Militano declined to comment.

In the criminal complaint, the victim is said to have referred to Alamo as her boyfriend. She initially reached out to Alamo for help with a bullying situation at school, Militano said in court and the two exchanged frequent texts for several weeks.The complaint states that Alamo visited her multiple times in her apartment lobby, first on New Year’s Day 2013, where he kissed her and groped her rear end. Alamo also sent the teenager lewd photographs via text.

The victim’s mother said outside court Wednesday that it was Alamo who initiated contact in November 2012 when he complimented a picture her daughter had uploaded on Instagram.

Alamo is released on bail of $1,500.

Students and Bronx advocacy groups are now trying to work with School Safety Officers  to improve relations and bring peace with dignity to the schools. (JUANITA CEBALLOS/The Bronx Ink)

Grover Vazquez, an 11-year-old former student at P.S. 55 in the Bronx, was terrified when he saw one of his friends get arrested in the middle of class. A police officer assigned to the school was called in when Grover´s classmates started fighting over a pencil. As the officer handcuffed one of the students, Grover hid under his desk because he thought the officer was going to take him too.

When he got home that day in March 2011, he asked his mother, Esperanza Vazquez, why police officers arrest kids who misbehave. “He is a little boy,” Grover told his mother. “He is my friend. We´re not criminals.” It took Vazquez weeks to convince her son that school was a safe place.
The arrests at P.S. 55 were just a few of the hundreds that take place every year in classrooms across the city. In the first half of 2012, the New York City Police Department’s School Safety Division arrested 540 New York City students; 164 of those arrests took place in the Bronx. Although the borough represents only 21 percent of the city’s school enrollment, 30 percent of the total arrests and 51 percent of the total summons were issued there.

Esperanza Vazquez’s son was terrified when he saw one of his friends get arrested in the middle of class. (JUANITA CEBALLOS/The Bronx Ink)

“My son was really traumatized,” said Vazquez, a Mexican immigrant. “There has to be a positive approach to disciplining kids. The excessive use of force is never a solution.”

Before 1998, the Department of Education supervised safety officers in schools. But that year, then Mayor Rudolph Giuliani transferred control of the school division to the police department over protests from students, parents, educators and community leaders who claimed that police in schools would disrupt learning.

In January 2004, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the Impact Schools initiative, which allowed the presence of New York Police Department to be increased in schools where there was a high level of reported crime.

In the years since then, the responsibilities of school safety agents have increased. They now monitor entrances, exits and hallways, operate scanners, cameras and metal detectors and verify students and staff identifications.

New York Police Department School Safety Division data reveals that school arrests disproportionately affect black and Latino students in the Bronx. Of those arrested, more than 47 percent were Latinos and 52 percent were black. As reported by the Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York — a coalition of students, parents, advocates, educators and lawyers — 82 percent of students citywide that have to go through metal detectors are black or Latino. But the city’s Department of Education demographic enrollment data shows that Hispanic and black students account for only 68 percent of the city’s school population.

The  School Safety Division did not respond to a request for comment despite repeated attempts.

Aiesha Vegas, an 18-year-old Hispanic student at Satellite Academy in the Bronx, feels that Latinos have to constantly “watch their backs.” “They look at us as criminals,” she said. “We are targeted because they categorize us. When you arrest young students, all you do is harm them. Once you’re in the system, it´s going to be really hard to get a job.”

Although there is only a difference of 5 percent in the Hispanic population of the Bronx and Queens, the number of arrests in the Bronx is almost triple those in Queens. While 78 were registered in the Bronx, 27 took place in Queens.

For Shoshi Chowdhury, the Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York coordinator, the numbers reflect an alarming racial disparity. “It definitely creates a state of fear within the immigrant students because any minimal behavior can become a deportable offense,” said Chowdhury.

The immigration consequences of the arrests and summons for Latino students depend on their present immigration status, race, class and origin. The impact can range from expulsion from the United States to the re-evaluation of the present immigration status.

As reported by the New York Civil Liberties Union, there are 5,100 school safety agents in the city’s schools and just 3,000 guidance counselors and 1,500 social workers. According to that organization, “police personnel is becoming involved in disciplinary infractions that should be handled by educators.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union claims that the over-policing of schools drives youth directly into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. (JUANITA CEBALLOS/The Bronx Ink)

The civil liberties union argues that the students are being pushed towards the criminal justice system through zero tolerance policies where minor incidents lead to arrests, juvenile detention referrals, and criminal charges.

School safety agents receive 14 weeks of training, compared to the six months mandatory training for police officers. The civil liberties union says that the agents don’t receive proper and meaningful guidance on what their role in schools should be.

Rosalía Sierra, a parent leader with the New Settlement Parent Action Committee in the South Bronx, said disciplinary responses should start with the school´s teachers and principals. “We want them to reach their goals,” said Sierra, a Mexican immigrant. “We don’t want someone to tie up their hands so that they end up in jail.”

Since 2002, the city´s budget allotted to police and security officers has increased by 65 percent to more than $21 million, according to the Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York. Schools with metal detectors spend at least $2,000 less per student each year than those without. Research conducted by the civil liberties union found that each day, 100,000 New York City schoolchildren must pass through permanent metal detectors to enter their schools.

Muhammad Creasy, an 18-year-old student at Ellis Preparatory on the Kennedy High School Campus in the Marble Hill section of the Bronx, received a ticket when the scanner revealed he had a bottle of water in his backpack. Students are told to remove food and beverages from their backpacks before they pass them through the scanners. “They should invest the money they are paying to the school safety division to buy more books,” said Creasy. “We don´t need police officers in our schools.”

“Agents are in every corner watching you,” said Creasy. “I cannot feel 100 percent comfortable, even in the classroom.”

Estefan Peña is a 19-year-old Dominican student at Ellis Preparatory on the Kennedy High School Campus. School safety agents suspended him three times last year. One of the suspensions was for ordering take-out food.

Shoshi Chowdhury, the Dignity in Schools coordinator, said there isn’t a specific set of rules that defines if that type of conduct is punishable or not. “It depends on the mood of the safety officers,” said Chowdhury.

“There are two scanners in my school,” added Peña. “Whenever I have to go through them I don’t feel like I’m entering a school. It looks like they´re preparing us for a future in prison.”

Students, community leaders and civil rights advocates claim that there is a criminalization of non-criminal incidents. Disorderly conduct charges accounted for 70 percent of the 487 summonses issued in the Bronx schools during the first six months of 2012.

Although Abdul Salam Bukanola, 16, student at Bronx Regional High School, hasn´t been arrested or suspended, he feels that the agents are punishing students for minor disciplinary infractions.

“Friends of mine have been suspended for coming late to school or for talking in class,” said Bukanola. “This policy it´s not right. Sometimes they treat us like criminals. I don’t deserve it because I haven´t done anything bad.”

Since 2002, the city´s budget allotted to police and security officers has increased by 65 percent to more than $21 million. (JUANITA CEBALLOS/The Bronx Ink)

When asked about the policy, Jaime Koppel, Children’s Defense Fund senior program associate, went a step forward and put the focus on how the police presence is affecting the learning environment. “We’re losing an opportunity to teach children,” said Koppel. “They just have to pay a fine and nobody talks to them about what they did wrong.”

According to Akilah Irvin, youth organizer at Mothers on the Move, the school system is failing to provide emotional support to students. “School principals have limited resources at their disposal to address the children’s needs,” said Irvin. “It’s all about the way we communicate with them and the wrong assumptions that are usually made by agents.”

Shoshi Chowdhury is confident that the consequences go far beyond the psychological damages. “This policy is affecting families, in particular low-income neighborhoods. Many students cannot pay the fines associated with summons,” said Chowdhury. “That has a negative impact on their credit rating and can be held against them when trying to get a student loan.”

Advocacy leaders claim that the policy doesn’t leave much space for educators to question agents’ actions. The arrest of Bronx Guild High School Principal Michael Soguero back in 2005 is an example. He was arrested when he tried to stop an officer from handcuffing one of his students and had to spend the night in jail. He was not allowed back in the school until the charges were dropped two months later.

The Student Safety Act, which was signed into law on January 2011, mandates detailed quarterly reports of suspensions, arrests and school-discipline matters. The reports allow civil rights advocates to track School Safety Division practices and allows them to draw a portrait of their disciplinary actions.

On June 25, Bronx parents, elected representatives, School Safety Division top officials and New York State Department of Education members, gathered for the first time to discuss the high number of suspensions and arrests in the borough. During this meeting, parents and students claimed that the School Safety Division is creating a criminal environment without a reduction in arrests or violent incidents.

According to Dinu Ahmed, a community organizer working on educational justice in the South Bronx at Parent Action Committee, the hearing concluded with a commitment from the Department of Education and the police department to come up with an action plan based on the concerns and recommendations raised during the meeting.
Parent Action Committee’s suggested alternatives to school policing, range from restorative practices to peer mediation programs.

“We need to provide support to the students and teach them about conflict resolution,” said Ahmed. “The city has to prioritize support for students over policing and metal detectors and not vice versa.”

School Safety Division. from Juanita Ceballos on Vimeo.

Tension between Bronx residents and police have been smoldering in recent weeks, in the wake of police killings of two unarmed young men.

Recent protests have followed a year of public outcry over reports that city police have disproportionately stopped and frisked Black and Latino young men, particularly those in the South Bronx, based on little more than police suspicion. Most recently, a five-borough protest spurred by residents took place last Thursday.

On Wednesday, Sept. 13, the Bronx Ink staff decided to find out if Bronx residents thought the stop-and-frisk tactics  might in any way be contributing to the growing unrest. Reporters scoured 12 community districts and collected the stories of 33 people, ranging from the ages of 19 to 72.  Of those surveyed, 43 percent were Black, 30 percent Hispanic, 15 percent White, 9 percent South Asian, and 3 percent Asian. Six were women, 27 were men. Occupations ranged from student to dishwasher to paralegal. The overall population in the Bronx is 30.1 percent Black, 53.5 percent Hispanic, 10.9 percent White, and 3.2 percent Asian.

Police argue that the stop and frisk policy has resulted in removing dangerous criminals from the street. But a majority of men interviewed complained about being stopped multiple times, even though weapons were never found. Data released by the New York Police Department last year showed that more than 400 stops occurred in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx last year, resulting in only 10 confiscated guns. Most residents surveyed said they felt they were victims of profiling based on their race. Police data showed that young Black men represent 25.6 percent of the NYPD stops but only 1.9 percent of the city’s population. The same goes for young Latino men, who make up 16 percent of the NYPD’s stops but only 2.8 percent of the city’s population.

Some of the Bronx residents’ memories were fresh, and raw. Louis Soltren said he was sitting outside his Mott Haven apartment building one evening, dressed in a suit, drinking a Gatorade, taking a rest in the open air after a long day of work. That’s when a police officer approached him.

“I pulled out my ID,” Soltren remembered. “The guy actually refused to see my ID. Instead of treating me like a human being, he treated me like an animal.”

The officer ordered Soltren to take off his shoes and place his hands against the wall of his apartment building.

“I look way different than what certain drug dealers look like,” said Soltren, a 31-year-old Spanish and Italian resident of the Bronx. “I still fall in that category. The way I see it is because of my Hispanic race.”

The New York Civil Liberties Union estimates that police stopped on average about 1,900 people per day in 2011. The policy allows an officer to stop a person for a variety reasons, including walking suspiciously or having a suspicious bulge. The data shows that 88 percent of those stopped were not charged with anything.

Police records show that in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx, where Soltren has lived for 24 years, officers stopped and frisked residents 17,690  times – the fourth highest number in New York City.

Over half of the survey participants said they had been stopped. One-third of them admitted it happened more than once.

“One-hundred-one times I have been stopped by cops,” said Joys Reid, 53, a life-long Hunts Point resident, standing across the street from his apartment on Hoe avenue. “Everyday we get picked up for nothing.”

Of those interviewed, 77 percent said they opposed the practice.

“Stop and frisk I don’t think is going to stop anything because it hasn’t,” said Terrence Wilkerson, 36, a Highbridge resident for 30 years.

“Stop and frisk is borderline racism,” Wilkerson added.

The Bronx Ink poll reflects a greater trend among Black and Hispanic residents. According to a Quinnipiac University survey, 69 percent of Black voters and 53 percent of Hispanic voters disapproved of stop and frisk. In New York City overall, registered voters are split on the policy: 50 percent against, 45 percent for, and 5 percent undecided.

Only five of the people we spoke to supported the policy, two of whom were Hispanic.“I think it’s great. It’s extremely important,” said Robert Flores, 45, a Fordham resident. “I know a lot of people are against it but I feel that it needs to happen. Within this community, we are the only people robbing each other.”

Overwhelmingly, those surveyed said more positive police involvement in their community would prevent unnecessary stops. “If they see the same people everyday, they should know the community,” Peter Lorenzi, 19, a criminal justice major at Berkeley College said. “They should know people around them.”

Click on photos to hear their stories.

Additional reporting by Ana Ionova, Andrew Freedman, Annaliese Wiederspahn, Coleen Jose, Jan Hendrik Hinzel, Jika González, Kenny Suleimanagich, Margaret Badore, Natasha Lindstrom, Sadef A. Kully, Selase Kove-Seyram, Sonia Paul, Valentine Pasquesoone, Vidur Malik and Yi Du.

A man jumped into a tiger den at the Bronx Zoo and then was mauled by a 400-pound tiger, yesterday afternoon in an apparent suicide attempt according to officials, the DNAinfo reports.

Twenty-five year old David Villalobos was riding the zoo’s monorail, and as it passed over the tiger den – he jumped 17 feet and landed on the ground where a 400-pound Siberian tiger mauled him.

Villalobos, who officials said visited the zoo alone, told those who rescued him that he jumped in a suicide attempt.

Villalobos’ right foot and left leg were clawed, and he was bitten on the back, where a fang punctured his lung, sources said. Zoo officials said he also suffered bites on his arms and shoulder. He was taken to Jacobi Medical Center, where he was in critical but stable condition Friday evening, police said.

Bronx Zoo personnel rescued Villalobos by using a fire extinguisher, zoo personnel said in a statement.

The tiger who attacked Villalobos was 11-year-old Bachuta, a 400-pound male  Siberian tiger according to Jim Breheny, the zoo’s director.

In a press conference at the zoo Friday evening, Breheny said the zoo had been prepared to use deadly force to restrain the tiger but did not blame the tiger for his reaction.

9 September, 2012- Bronx - Reverend Que English (left) holds prayer for Reynaldo Cuevas, the young father from the Dominican Republic accidentally shot by police during a robbery scuffle on Friday morning. (The Bronx Ink/Jika González)

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Further reading: Morrisania Mourns Robbery Victim Shot by Police

Clergy works to calm activists as anti-NYPD feelings rage

Rain began falling Saturday night just as Rev. Ruben Austria led a passionate prayer for justice and healing in the aftermath of a botched robbery that left a 20-year-old bodega worker dead from police gunfire.

Huddled in a tight circle at 169th Street and Franklin Avenue, roughly 50 mourners — family members, friends and community activists — turned out Saturday night in honor of Reynaldo Cuevas, the young father from the Dominican Republic accidentally shot by police during a robbery scuffle early Friday morning.

“We want to stand in solidarity with the family and pray that our outrage doesn’t lead to in-rage. That it doesn’t cause us to consume ourselves and tear one each other down,” Austria told the group, with he and fellow clergy starting a chorus of “Hallelujah.”

Rally participants gathered around a makeshift memorial draped with flowers, rosaries and hand-scribbled notes across from Aneurys Daily Grocery in the Morrisania section of the Bronx. Cuevas worked six nights a week at the store, often staying for 16-hour shifts.

Community activists joined cousins of Reynaldo Cuevas in a prayer vigil Saturday night. “We want to stand in solidarity with the family and pray that our outrage doesn’t lead to in-rage,” Rev. Ruben Austria said. (ADAM PEREZ / The Bronx Ink)

The memorial included a few dollar bills, some cigarette butts and a lottery ticket — the type of loot the armed robbers tried to make off with in a backpack before police arrived.

Around 1:50 a.m. Friday, Cuevas, in an “understandable panic to get away from the gunman as fast as possible,” ran outside the bodega to escape the masked robbers and collided with a police officer, according to Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, and the officer accidentally fired his weapon, striking Cuevas in his left shoulder. He died at St. Barnabas Hospital.

“I want to extend my condolences to the Cuevas family for their loss,” Kelly said in a statement Friday. Kelly emphasized the events had transpired in “split seconds.”

Some came to the Saturday night rally simply to mourn the loss of Cuevas, described by relatives as a kind-hearted young man who’d been saving to send money to his 3-year-old daughter, Jamie, in the Dominican Republic.

“He was hard-working and humorous and caring,” said Ashley Rodriguez, 14, a cousin of Cuevas. She said she last saw Cuevas two days before his death, when he helped her get through some issues she was facing with high school. Cuevas was a good listener, she said, and he urged her to stay focused on her studies.

Reynaldo Cuevas, 20, worked nights at the bodega, saving money for his 3-year-old daughter, Jamie, in the Dominican Republic.

“How many parents got to bury their kids? When is this really going to stop?” said Juanita Young, an activist with Families of Stolen Lives and Parents Against Police Brutality. “I am so angry at what just happened here — that young man just trying to make a life for him and his family … When is enough enough?”

The candlelit vigil, announced via a cardboard sign at the memorial site and on a Facebook page for Cuevas created Saturday, also drew activists from the New York Civil Liberties Union and Stop “Stop and Frisk” Freedom Fighters, who oppose the NYPD’s controversial tactic of searching people on the streets over concerns police disproportionately target people of color.

“People are out here not just for this incident, but because I think what everybody feels and knows and understands is there’s been years of police harassing and targeting young black and Latino men,” Austria said.

Ashley Rodriguez said she’s not sure her cousin’s death represents a bigger problem; she just wants to see an investigation into the officer who shot him. For now, she wants that officer suspended.

“It’s uplifting to know that even people that didn’t know him are supporting us because they know this wasn’t right,” said Mary Rodriguez, 24, another cousin of Cuevas who was wearing an anti-“Stop and Frisk” button.

A downpour dispersed the crowd on Saturday, with some activists announcing plans to reschedule a march for Wednesday, and to attend a funeral for Cuevas on Monday.

Saturday’s event was the second emotional vigil honoring Cuevas this weekend. On Friday night, after the news vans and most reporters had left, the crowd erupted into angry shouting at the police, who stood quietly across the street. Austria was there, too, working to calm the small crowd for several hours and prevent the scene from escalating into a violent confrontation with the officers.

“The police have to be held accountable when they use excessive force, but we have to hold ourselves accountable. The community’s got to hold each other accountable because the violence between us is unacceptable just as well,” Austria said. “Nobody gets a pass for doing wrong.”

Staff writers Sadef Kully, Adam Perez and Jan Hendrik Hinzel contributed to this report.

The makeshift memorial included a few dollars, cigarette butts and used lottery tickets–booty found on the suspects after their arrest, said police. (ADAM PEREZ / The Bronx Ink)

Police are searching for two suspects in the assault on Bimal Chanda in his Kingsbridge apartment. JASMEET SIDHU/The Bronx Ink)

The fatal beating of a Bengali man in his Kingsbridge building last week has shaken members of the north Bronx Bengali community, who now believe he was targeted because of his ethnicity.

Bimal Chanda, a 59-year-old former taxi driver, was robbed and severely beaten on the second-floor landing of his apartment building on 190^th Street just off of Fordham Road on the morning of October 29. He died in the hospital four days later from severe head trauma, leaving behind a wife and a 16-year-old daughter.

Friends were shocked at the brutal assault of Chanda, who emigrated to Kingsbridge from Calcutta, India nearly 30 years ago.

“He was an innocent guy who was killed intentionally,” said Mohammed Ali, a member of Community Board 7, who had been friends with Chanda for more than 10 years. “The Bengali community is very afraid of this biased crime. It’s a hate crime.”

Ali said Chanda, an acute diabetic, was moving from his apartment on the third floor to a condominium in Parkchester, because of concerns about crime in the area. He and his wife were picking up the last of their possessions in the apartment when Chanda left to purchase tape from a nearby 99-cent store.

That’s when two men grabbed him from behind on the staircase and struck him on the head with a metal object. The commotion could be heard throughout the apartment building, which has no security cameras or working locks on the front entrance.

“Robbers, they target us,” said Ali, referring to what he said has been a series of thefts and attacks on Bengalis in the neighborhood in the last couple of months. Ali helped organize a rally Thursday after Chanda’s funeral in Parkchester, where Chanda’s wife and daughter now live.

Police have placed notices inside the building where Chanda was killed, on 190th Street. (JASMEET SIDHU/The Bronx Ink)

Police have released a video of the two suspects, described as male and black, between the ages of 20 and 25, and approximately six-feet tall apiece. Notices of the attack have also gone up in the apartment building, including one written by residents demanding the landlord install cameras and fix the broken locks on the front door.

On Saturday morning at around 4 a.m., a 21-year-old man was shot in front of an apartment building on 2843 Bainbridge Avenue, near 198^th Street, a few blocks from where he lived on the Grand Concourse. Detectives on the scene said that the man had been in an argument with several other men when the shots were fired. The victim, Edwin Valdez, who was shot in the chest, was still able to walk to 198^th Street where he was able to receive help. He later died at Saint Barnabas Hospital.

Bainbridge Avenue was cordoned off by police between 198^th Street and 199^th Street all morning, including a portion right in front of the Academy of Mount St. Ursula High School. Police have not identified any suspects.

The early morning killing convinced some longtime residents in the Bedford Park neighborhood that it was time to leave.