(courtesy spotcrime.com)

“The first killing occurred at 6 p.m. on Friday in the South Bronx,” nytimes.com reports. “Two friends were standing in front of 680 Tinton Avenue near the John Adams Houses when a gunman opened fire, the police said. Tyrek Singleton, 28, of the Bronx was shot in the torso and pronounced dead at Lincoln Medical Center. His 26-year-old friend, who was not immediately identified, was shot in the leg. He told investigators he did not know the gunman.” Yeah, that’s what he said . . . I wonder if anyone involved was a gang banger. I don’t wonder if gun control could have prevented this killing. Because it didn’t. On to the next . . .

Two and a half hours later, two men were shot in the chest and killed in Brownsville, Brooklyn, the police said. The men were identified as Tevin Beckles, 21, and Randolph Williams, 37, both of Brooklyn. The police said Mr. Williams had 52 arrests, most of them drug-related.

Wow! Fifty-two arrests. I wonder about the exact nature of those non-drug-related arrests. Meanwhile, I have a sneaking suspicion that this murder was also drug-related. And just because a gun was used doesn’t mean that it somehow “caused” this crime. Wait. Is this Joe Nocera’s The Gun Report? No. He’d never mention priors.

At 2:15 a.m. on Saturday, police officers found Pablo Pagan, 40, dead with a gunshot wound to the head close to his home in the Arthur H. Murphy Houses on Vyse Avenue in the Bronx.

About three miles away and two hours later, police officers discovered Marco Castillo, 24, with a gunshot wound to the chest. Mr. Castillo was pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.

The police said that Mr. Castillo was walking on Westchester Avenue when two men approached and one started a physical fight with him. When the man began to lose, the other man shot Mr. Castillo in the head and torso.

Who was it that said that nothing good happens at 2am in the morning? Every gun guru extant. As for who started the fight and who was winning and how that was progressing at the time of the murder, well, it doesn’t matter now, does it? Perhaps legally but not as far as Mr. Pagan’s survivors are concerned.

Not to belabor a point (much), I wonder if any of the men involved had a criminal record and why The New York Times mentioned Mr. Williams’ rap sheet but offered no info on priors for any of the people involved in this crime? I wonder if the murderer would have killed Mr. Castillo with a knife if he’d had one. Or, if he’d “won” the fight, if he would have beaten Mr. Castillo to death. Would his pal have helped?

On Sunday morning, about five miles away from where Mr. Castillo had been shot, the police said that a 38-year-old man was shot in the torso around 6:40 a.m. on Boston Road in the Bronx. The man was taken to Jacobi Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Just five miles away, eh? Maybe there’s some kind of geographic thing going on here. You know: a pattern of gang activity in a particular area. That might have something to do with it. Of course, we could focus on a pattern of “easy access to guns” but I’m not sure what good that would do in terms of reducing the number of murders. Just sayin’ . . .

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25 COMMENTS

  1. The problem with locking up gang bangers ,is that the NYC management needs the baby momma vote to stay in office.

    So, they install a revolving door at the jail and blame the consequential carnage on those evil conservative gun owners-you know, the people who won’t vote for you anyways.

    Win win.Unless you live in NYC.

  2. If they stop blaming guns they will have to blame the drug war, a poverty ridden race, and make people responsible for their actions… We can’t have that.

  4. Community guns help gang bangers do their thing without needing a bunch of guns. Hide a gun and go get it when you need it.

    Oh if nobody had a gun then that fist fight would have just ended with both guys shaking hands with with the winner buying the loser a beer, or not.

  5. “Oh well, since I can’t seem to get a gun, maybe I’ll just quit the gang, stop selling and taking drugs, stay in school, get a job and honor my commitment to the children I’ve fathered.”

  6. Don’t you see? If WE would just stop being so… so… GUNNY, then all of those poor little disadvantaged dears would stop being so degenerate! IT’S LOGIC!

  7. There is an important factor missing from the map and the story: Just how many 24-hour basketball courts are within a five-mile radius of the epicenter of this horrific gun violence? It is a well-known fact that the ready availability of basketball courts and basketballs has a direct bearing on such things. A near-by basketball court inspires all inner-city youth to completely eschew firearms, drugs, alcohol, loose women, sloth, and general ne’er-do-wellness while inculcating in them the true spirit of sportsmanship and good fellowship to all Mankind.

    /sarc/

  9. “Started a physical fight with him”. I’m much more partial to spiritual fights, or break-dancing fights.

    • Or poetry fights, perhaps Bloomberg can start on initiative to get gangs to battle with poetry.

      The young prince in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, “I don’t want land, I want to sing!”

  10. In fairness, NYC is one of the safest large cities in the United States. I don’t attribute that, at all, to gun control, but if the point of this article is that New York is particularly dangerous, it’s based on a fundamentally flawed premise.

    • “NYC is one of the safest large cities in the United States” is damning it with faint praise. Yes, it safe for a large city. That doesn’t mean it’s safe.

      As a native New Yorker, I can tell you that there are eight million stories in the naked city, and just as many ways to die.

  12. Politicians focus on the guns because they are afraid of people asking “who buys the drugs?” and “where does that drug money go?”

  13. Just imagine the costs to the taxpayer for making those 52 arrests for just one person such as police operations, free legal defense and other court fees, jail time, parole officer costs, etc.

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