BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | Friday morning, Tompkins Square Park was rattled once again by gun violence, apparently drug related, that left one man dead and another clinging to life.
According to police, about 10 minutes before 10 a.m., multiple 911 calls reported an assault in progress in the East Village park.
Responding officers found two victims — both of them reportedly shot in the back. One of them, 74, was sprawled on the ground by the chess tables near the park’s southwest corner. The other, 44, trailing blood, fled across Avenue A and up one block to the Avenue A Deli and Grill, near the corner of Eighth Street. He lay inside bleeding on the floor for around 10 minutes before paramedics arrived and treated him.
Both victims were taken to Bellevue Hospital, where the older man was pronounced dead. The younger one’s condition reportedly worsened to critical by the afternoon, but by the evening police said he was in stable condition.
Police are not releasing the deceased man’s name yet pending notification of his family first.
The suspect was described as wearing a black jacket, faded blue jeans, a black bucket hat, black sneakers and a white mask. He was said to have fled the scene in a car with New Jersey plates.
Just four months ago in Tompkins Square Park, a man committed two broad-daylight shootings within five days, seriously injuring two people. One of the victims, wounded in the buttocks, was a man with whom the shooter was fighting. The other, blasted in the hip, was a 56-year-old out-of-towner visiting to watch her son run a half-marathon; she had to get a hip replacement. Waldemar Alverio, 38, was subsequently arrested and indicted for attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon. Those shootings also were believed to be drug related — though were not at the chess tables but outside the kids’ playground near Avenue A.
After Friday’s gun violence, the park’s southwest corner was cordoned off with police tape as detectives and the forensics unit conducted the crime scene investigation.
Also cordoned off was the street corner outside the park at 10th Street and Avenue B. A cop posted at the spot indicated it was a crime scene because “someone had left something” there, but did not offer more specifics.
Speaking a few hours later, East Village locals stopping by to check out the main crime scene expressed concern about yet more gunfire and mayhem in the beloved East Village green space. Two twentysomething women who were working from home this day (both have hybrid schedules) said they love the park but that the shootings are shocking.
“It’s awful,” said Gabby, 26. “It’s like a block away from where I live.”
She was a bit rattled, noting she had walked over to get her cup of coffee at Boris & Horton, at 12th Street and Avenue A, right around the time of the shootings.
A Boston transplant working in advertising, she has called the neighborhood home for three years.
“Usually, it’s lovely. It’s awesome,” she said of the park. “I’m going to tell my roommates about this and they’re going to freak out. You usually think of shootings happening in the middle of the night at 3 a.m.”
Stopping by a few minutes later, Gracyn Sollmann, 24, said it’s hard to reconcile the fact that bullets are flying and people are getting gunned down in the same place where she and her friends like to unwind on the lawn.
“It’s definitely concerning because people of my demographic spend a lot of time in here as a spot to socialize,” she said. “My friends will come here after work sometimes, have a picnic, bring drinks.”
At the same time, Sollmann — who is not originally from New York City and works at a progressive educational nonprofit — stressed that, instead of just being punitive, a bottom-up approach to address crime’s “systemic causes” is needed.
Meanwhile, a lifelong local resident who gave his name as Spar, 59, a freelance artist, said the park is definitely in a down swing right now.
“Things have gotten a little bit worse in the neighborhood,” he said. “I’ve seen the neighborhood go up, down, up and now the park is down again. It’s the influx of drugs, homeless and stuff. They’re getting involved in drug sales.”
Spar said he sometimes spends time in Tompkins, but only if there is something like a music event.
“Other than that, things are unsettled,” he said. “If you go through the park at the wrong time, you could have a casualty. A few months ago an innocent person was shot.”
So he keeps his distance — literally. He said if he is walking by outside and senses trouble happening inside the park, he’ll cross and walk on the other side of the street.
Through July 7, overall crime year to date in the East Village’s 9th Precinct compared to 2023 was down nearly 30 percent.
To Paul DiRienzo,
Surely you are not the Paul DiRienzo of WBAI?
Honestly, feel baffled and sad that you are commenting in this way.
It is hard to know what to say… .
First, different things can be true at the same time.
Second, people are not just monolith categories.
Third, solutions are not so easy — otherwise we’d have solved our problems.
Don’t you think people have a right to “want” to feel safe? To walk to the subway or drugstore and not feel frightened by someone, not to see a person using drugs, etc. Do you think all “poor” people are “victims”?
Solutions that may be great in concept may not ultimately work in reality for many reasons or there may be serious unexpected consequences.
A childhood friend (we are all native New Yorkers) has been basically homeless since his 20s. Smart, good-looking, charismatic before things went downhill. He grew up in a “stable” family, not rich, not poor. His family are nice people. His family gave him money, begged him to get help.
Fast-forward — his family has given up. They give him money periodically but will no longer allow him in their homes.
And guess what — they are against a shelter or safe-needle program near where they live.
Or a different example — JD Vance was once “poor” and had a challenging childhood. Now he is a rich Republican lawyer. Should we excuse his life choice because he was poor growing up?
After multiple generations, I know my extended family has given up and is trying to figure out how to leave NYC. Hyper-gentrification, glossy high-rises everywhere, loss of neighborhood, nonfunctional public schools, overflowing trash, homeless and drug users on the streets and subways (you know, I am sure, that many homeless/drug users on the street came to NYC from elsewhere)… .
But a city can’t really survive if it is only a playground for young affluents and open-ended services for people with intractable problems.
How nice would it be if the cops from the 9th would actually come out of their precincts and patrol the streets, either as beat cops or in patrol cars, cruising the streets slowly to keep an eye on what’s going on? As it is there is no proactive police presence, has not been in decades, they only show up after something has happened.
The crime rate is lower than most of America in the Lower East Side. These events are related to money, inflation, lack of opportunity. Anybody is capable of violence given the right circumstances, especially when honor is involved. I suggest continue moving forward with harm reduction, getting folks treatment, or if necessary the drugs they need, eviscerate the economy behind drugs, not the dealers or users. The young people flocking to the neighborhood should see they have a role of contributing to the betterment of the place they obviously love. Food kitchens, outreach, working with the homeless and much more, get involved, join up. We can do this together.
Ah yes, the gaslighting — every time there is a a heinous violent act committed, the progressives want to remind us that “statistically” crime is on the decline or really not a problem. Those claims never come with any citations for data that back that up. It’s just a bunch of hand-waving.
You comment looks like a word soup of hollow progressive buzz words.
All of those buzz words you have mentioned are in effect and this why we have the situation we have now. More of the same is not a viable solution.
So all we have to do is fill up the prisons with the poor?
If you in the community are wondering how and why this is horrid decline is happening in our Village, it is because too many far lefties like Paul actually believe the hogwash he wrote above. Sadly it is our politicians who believe this too. He is basically saying that more of the same (i.e. more money, more free stuff, less law enforcement, less arrests) will actually solve the problem. Rather it has the opposite effect whereby the community becomes a magnet for out-of-state addicts and criminals to come to our safe haven. Memo to Paul and Pols — please show me actual evidence of where and when your virtue-signaling pollyanna policies have actually worked. While yes we can have sympathy for addicts, there must also be rules and consequences. It worked before and we had a wondeful community for all.
This morning I was forwarded a video of a fully naked man masturbating in front of a diner on West 4th st. This is not ok and no amount of gaslighting from Paul and company will change that.
So what do you want to do about men masturbating in public? Apparently you’re an expert.
What a disgusting reply.
What to do about a man masturbating on the street during the day, naked? seriously? it’s called arrest, charge and jailed. sorry if the idea of incarceration hurts your feelings. perhaps he needs psych attention — what he also needs is to not do this again here on our streets. Period. Also, where did you get filling up prisons with the poor? (more gaslighting). We can fill them up with….now get this radical idea…CRIMINALS… speaking of which, a man died in this park and you glossed right over that. He has a name. He was a person. Sorry, but social- and racial-justice excuses do not override a man’s life.
I agree totally.
Just on the bus Saturday morning, an elderly woman got on – crying.
Someone asked if she needed help – she said she was sick of all the guns, that things kept getting worse.
Apparently she had just heard gunshots on her block.
I agree with Miriam, things are slipping backwards. Alphabet City was a tough neighborhood, used to look like war zone. Thanks to Giuliani and Bloomberg that neighborhood went thru some real transitions. Mayor Adams has to stop this backward slide that we are seeing around many parts of the city.
It’s crazy. I live all my life here and I’m 53 years old. I feel like it’s going back like the 1980s. People can’t walk comfortable around the area. There’s always a stabbing, a shooting. What happened to keeping the children safe because people are not respecting children and elderly anymore? At lease in 1980s people knew the street code and that was one of them, would respect children and elderly. Now there’s none of that. The city has gotten so bad u know when u leave your house but you never know if you coming back home. It’s a shame.