In a holiday that is generally marked by barbecues, fireworks and jubilee celebrations, the Bronx saw a surge of bloodshed over the long weekend.
Some of the borough’s top political leaders held a press conference on Thursday in Joyce Kilmer Park to address separate gun violence incidents that took place in the Bronx over Independence Day weekend — incidents that left several people, including a few children, injured or dead.
Borough President Vanessa Gibson said there were 16 shooting incidents across the Bronx involving 25 shooting victims — including a 5-year-old and a 12-year-old girl — from June 30 through July 4.
“This holiday has accounted for the most number of (nationwide) mass shootings of any other holidays in nearly a decade,” Gibson said Thursday referencing mass shootings on the Fourth of July in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. “. … This is not normal. This should never be acceptable in our society.”
Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, state Sen. Jamaal Bailey, as well as New York City Councilmembers Rafael Salamanca and Marjorie Velázquez, also spoke about the importance of decreasing borough-wide violence.
Last Friday, a 5-year-old girl was sitting in a car with her father at White Plains Road and East 213rd Street in the Bronx at around 7 p.m. when what appeared to be a round of stray bullets struck her in the back. Cops took the little girl to Montefiore Medical Center, and she was later listed in stable condition.
Police sources told sister affiliate amNewYork Metro after the incident that the family had been attending a vigil for a man who was fatally killed at the same location one day prior. After visiting the little girl in the hospital on Sunday, newly minted NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell told reporters they’d prosecute a suspect for the shooting in “short fashion.”
The 12-year-old girl was one of four victims in the second shooting, which occurred at about 9:45 p.m. on Sunday night in front of an apartment building at 1780 Eastburn Ave. in Mt. Hope.
Officers from the 46th Precinct responded to the scene after receiving a 911 call and upon arrival, authorities said they located three victims — a 23-year-old shot in the right thigh, a 35-year-old woman struck in the buttocks, and the 12-year-old girl, who was wounded in the shoulder.
According to prior reporting, the NYPD believes the female victims were not targeted, as they were located further down the block from where the 23-year-old was located. All three victims were listed in stable condition at St. Barnabas Hospital, and Gibson said Thursday that the 12-year-old “is on the path to recovery.”
A fourth victim in Sunday’s Mt. Hope shooting — a 22-year-old man — later walked into BronxCare Health System after suffering a gunshot wound to one of his toes. He was listed in stable condition. As of Monday, no arrests had been made in the case.
There were also two fatal homicidal stabbings in the Bronx over the weekend — one that killed 52-year-old Richard Roberts last Friday and another that killed 26-year-old Luis Cartagena on Independence Day. And on Wednesday, an 18-year-old by the name of Moise Figueroa was shot in Fordham Heights and later pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital. A 19-year-old boy, whose identity wasn’t released by police, survived Wednesday’s attack.
Melvin Kimbrough, who was at the press conference on Thursday, works in social and community engagement for the Save Our Streets (S.O.S.) project of the Center for Justice Innovation. The center operates S.O.S. programs — which aim to end gun violence through educational and employment opportunities — in Mott Haven and Morrisania, as well as two neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
Kimbrough said part of his job is to collaborate with other neighborhood partners to help end the cycle of gun violence. He said he’s spoken at different schools and shelters to try to reach kids who are at risk for violence or incarceration, using his first-hand knowledge of the issue.
“I got into that line of work because unfortunately, I was a part of the problem,” he told the Bronx Times. “I did over 26 years in prison.”
Kimbrough, who just turned 48 in May, said in his younger days he was a founder of a faction of the Bloods — a group the U.S. Department of Justice categorizes as narcotic trafficking “street gangs.” According to state records, he served his sentence in Attica state prison after being convicted of manslaughter, assault and promoting prison contraband.
He said he wants kids to know that they don’t need to commit violent crimes or go to prison to prove their worth to “people, or community or (a) population that really don’t care nothing about you.”
“When you go to prison, so does your loved ones,” Kimbrough said. “Everybody suffers from that.”
If he could go back in time, Kimbrough said he would love to play sports, go to college, and maybe even “play the drums or something like that.”
“But I can’t take that time back,” he said. “So I use my story and my popularity in a positive way, so therefore I can get that message across.”
Clark, who won her Democratic primary race last week and is set to assume her third term as the Bronx DA in November, assured the public on Thursday that her office is working on decreasing violent crime in the borough, and sent a warning to the people committing these acts — something she also told the Bronx Times following her reelection.
“I’m telling you right now, I’m holding you accountable,” Clark said. “ … Whether it’s in the state or federal, you’re going to be held accountable when you decide that it’s OK to shoot a 5-year-old girl, (that) she could be collateral damage to your little beef.”
But even with assuring the public that criminals will be held accountable, the Bronx DA’s office will need to combat having the worst conviction and dismissal rates in New York City, while having secured guilty verdicts in just 60% of murder arrests by law enforcement — the lowest in the city, according to data from the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services.
Clark said she’s already dedicated time investigating this weekend’s cases.
“Every single one of those incidents this weekend, we’re already investigating and we know who you are,” Clark said. “You may not think we do, but we know who you are and we’re going to continue to do that work.”
— ET Rodriguez, Robbie Sequeira, Robert Pozarycki and Dean Moses contributed to this report
Reach Camille Botello at cbotello@schnepsmedia.com. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes
