Mourning as City Tries to Understand Village Shooting

The city continued to be be stunned over the murder of a pizzeria employee and two auxiliary police officers by a gunman, who was later killed by police, in Greenwich Village Wednesday night. The police made surveillance footage of the shooting of the auxiliaries public; the graphic video shows shooter David Garvin shooting a point blank range, deliberately crossing the street to kill the officers. The papers are devoting many stories to the victims:

Volunteering their time to work as auxiliary cops, Eugene Marshalik (left) and Nicholas Pekearo (right) are profiled in the NY Times, NY Sun, NY Post, and Daily News. Marshalik, a 19-year-old NYU student, whose family emigrated from Chechnya 13 years ago and was a star on the Stuyvesant debating team, wanted to work in law enforcement as a prosecutor. He also worked weekends as an apartment building doorman to make extra money. Though Marshalik's mom was worried about his volunteer work as an auxiliary cop, he told her that last time an auxiliary was killed was 13 years ago. And Pekearo, 28, grew up in the West Village, worked at Crawford Booksellers on Madison Avenue and had recently completed a novel. A friend told the Sun, "He was absolutely an angel kid, gorgeous." His girlfriend told the Times that Pekearo mainly dealt with getting "drunk people rides home" when on patrol.

Marshalik and Pekearo will be given funerals with inspector's honors.

DeMarco's Pizza barman Alfredo Romero Morales (pictured middle right) is remembered as a "Good Husband & Good Son" in the Daily News. His common-law wife, who recently miscarried, says that she had a premonition about something bad when they spoke to each other on the phone Wednesday. She also tells the NY Times she would like some help to bring his body back to Puebla for burial (it's not clear where one would be able to donate).

While a motive still has not been confirmed by the police, they believe that 42-year-old David R. Garvin may have been angry at Morales because Garvin's friend had been fired from DeMarco's. An ex-Marine who worked in journalism (he was fired from the Wall Street Journal as a graphics coordinator in 2005) and was an aspiring filmmaker, some say that he was recently very paranoid. His brother tells the NY Times, “He had no real violent inclinations. He wasn’t a person to cross. If you crossed him, he was an action person. Obviously, we know that now.”

Garvin (pictured bottom right) had moved to St. Louis in 2005, but moved back to the city last year, living with a friend, an EMT, in the Bronx. The police found a gun, 100 rounds of ammunition, and disguises in the apartment. Garvin had also worked at the Racoon Lodge on Warren Street, but had quit. Another employee said that he "couldn't control himself with drinking while working" while the Raccoon Lodge manager said, "You could say he didn't have charisma." Garvin's filmmaking website shows various films he worked on that never got distributed.

Garvin had recently moved to the Village to live with a girlfriend, who had introduced him to DeMarco's. He was a regular customer, but the DeMarco's cook Anthony Ruffino said that he recently changed his routine, sitting at the bar and not at a table. The police say he had been thrown out of the restaurant at least twice.

Now there is a call for the NYPD to outfit auxiliary police officers with bullet proof vests. And the 17-year-old daughter of Milton Clarke, the last auxiliary cop to die in the line of duty back in 1993, tells the Daily News, "It's really dumb to work as an auxiliary. You are dressed exactly like a cop, but you have no weapon." Clarke was given a funeral with police honors, but his family did not receive benefits that families of police officers killed on the job receive.

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By Jen Chung in News on March 16, 2007 9:50 AM

Comments [rss]

Daughter of Auxiliary Officer

It's funny how the families of the 2 Auxiliaries recently killed are going to receive all these promised benefits.... Yep, my family was promised benefits...but we received NOTHING.

Good luck and blessings to the families of the 2 fallen officers... I wish them an end to the run around they'll get... AUXILIARY OFFICERS ARE NOT RECOGNIZED AS PEACE OFFICERS- Here is your disqualification for everything the city has to offer.

Dave

Dear "I am Middle Class,"

No, seriously. I am middle class too. Isn't being middle class great? Everyone in America is middle class, even the rich people and the poor people. It's our God-given right to claim to be middle class no matter what.

But I'm not naive or a bitch (I am little, how'd you know?). I grew up middle class. Potomac isn't only that place with the fenced in horses on the giant yards where Wonder Woman lives. I grew up on the other side of the tracks from there. It was kinda the "South Village" to the nice part of Potomac's "North Village."

SoHoGuy

Ed (#44)

There are lies, damn lies and statistics.

Sullivan Street is not 'wealthy'. It is indeed middle class. It is aka the "South Village'.

I know lots of people on Sullivan Street and they are struggling. Many are the old-timers on Rent Stabilization and the rest are new kids who are doubling up in studios and paying 40% of their income in rent.

The statistics you refer to state that 10012 (SoHo/South Village) and 10013 (TriBeCa) are the wealthiest ZipCodes.

Because SoHo and TriBeCa have huge, often luxury lofts, it skews the stats for tenements in the south Village.

I wish people would get their stats, err, facts, straight when they post some of their odious and incorrect statements.

Ed

I didn't hear the show, but the caller was ridiculous. Sullivan Street isn't middle class. Its wealthy. The whole Tribeca/ Soho/ West Vilalge area is wealthier than the Upper East Side (you can look it up).

The area simply hasn't been dangerous for twenty years. This is the equivalent of a shootout at Neiman Marcus in Dallas.

i am middle class

I grew up in a really nice suburb called Potomac, Maryland....

I do feel guilty but it's not because I'm middle class. It's because I'm Jewish.

Uh Dave... Potomac is NOT middle class. Maybe for Jews it is but it's the equivalent of Scarsdale or Greenwich! If you think that's middle class then you are a naive little bitch.

The Edge

smitty, if they covered your face and eyes, it'd be difficult to see. ;P

Riot cops typically wear helmets with a ballistic rated plexiglass that protect the face. A few foreign counterterrorist units wear such helmets. But again, this would only cause people to complain about how "unnecessarily" intimidating cops look.

You also have to understand that skin-tight armor wouldn't prevent the impact trauma of the bullets. While better than getting shot outright, there's also the possibility of internal injuries from the impact trauma. Metal Gear Solid, this isn't.

Dave

I grew up in a really nice suburb called Potomac, Maryland. When I was 14, there was a crazy shootout IN MY BACKYARD and two people died. Cops everywhere, helicopters . . . suburbs.

Now I live on Bleecker Street.

I do feel guilty but it's not because I'm middle class. It's because I'm Jewish.

smitty

I know about helmets, but I was imagining some future technology like a lightweight bullet-proof hood. Does the helmet cover your face/eyes? Just wonderin'.

The Edge

ESU does, but that's about it.

Of course should AP and non-ESU NYPD started wearin' them, it'd just reinforce the "jackbooted thug" mentality some people seem to want to believe in.

Tom

When are they going to invent some bullet-proof head protection device.

One saved my cousin's life in Afghanistan. They're called helmets :)

Unfortunately, police don't really wear them.

#29: What?

MT

No #8 is not mistaken. We live in the safest big city in the world because our police have made it so. They give you half wits the luxury of bitching about whatever insignificant problem you choose. Meanwhile, people outside of your neighborhoods are having guns stuck in their faces on a daily basis. I meant it when I said we should appreciate our police. If we didn't have them your lame hipster ass wouldn't be living in Williamsburg much less thinking about crossing a bridge to Brooklyn. So the next time you are a victim of an actual crime and not some insult to your sense of irony just remember who's going to save you ass when you dial 911.

The Edge

There is.

It's called a MICH helmet.

smitty

It's definitely better to have a vest. I was just sayin'.

When are they going to invent some bullet-proof head protection device.

The Edge

#32 - oic

Tom

I admit to being lucky that I live in areas that are relatively more secure, so I admit that I do have some middle-class guilt.

Jen: Guilt is like a bag of bricks. All you got to do is put it down.

Best movie line ever.

pandemic wire

aim for the groin. And, anyone can shoot a gun, it's not rocket science. Just don't flinch or jerk the trigger. however, when you got nothing to loss (nothing in common) do what Garvin did.

Pow, right in the kisser. To the Moon.

20 and out. I think those are great benefits. so, your "Orly" is moot. ching.

The Edge

#29 - orly?

#30 - Yes, but it's still better than having nothing at all. And most untrained folks (and some trained ones, too) can barely hit a person center mass at 15 yards, let alone a headshot.

smitty

Unfortunately, one of the auxiliaries had a bullet proof vest that sadly didn't do him much good.

toughest JOB

Guess the truth hurts for white people when they find out the cops don't have the toughest job in the World. In fact, they have a pretty cushy job with GREAT benefits.

till that day.

Tim N.

Because it's the Village, because lots of people were out, and because the story is just so down-to-the-bones nuts, it's getting lots of play. There's also the angle of these two guys being auxillary cops - who are volunteers - and basically direct traffic and call the "real" cops when trouble starts being gunned down. So there are lots of reasons why this is getting real play.

Two things: One, was anyone else shocked to discover that the city can't spring for vests for these guys (do you think a nut like Garvin really stopped to think long enough to differentiate between and auxcops's badge and an NYPD shield?). It's another layer of sad that the auxilary cops are the streetcorner that doesn't get the traffic light until someone is killed.

And the other is this: people, this is the city. Stuff like this is going to happen. Don't sound all shocked that it happened in the "safest big city" or it happened "in the Village" or wherever. Stuff happens. If you want to be up to living here, then deal with it, prepare yourselves. It doesn't make it any less sad (and man, it's sad as hell), but if you're going to be shocked, be shocked at the insanity of it, not the geography.

PS: Nice job, Jen. I thought you handled yourself great, both on the air and above.