St. Lucia Soccer Star Fatally Shot After Leaving Brooklyn Club

Also, I lived on dean near nostrand for a while and Friends still live there, and i'm there all the time. I'm also white, and i never had any issues. we used to sit on the stoop and watch the crackhead soap opera across the street at night and drink beer. i've only had 3 out of place encounters over several years, once a guy playing dominoes yelled at me as i walked by asking where i was from, but i'm pretty sure he was just trying to figure out if i was a cop or not as i was new to the neighborhood. there is also a dude that rides around on a bike and gave me the same i'm displaced by katrina, my daughter needs a can of milk from the corner store, can i help him prove he can support his daughter (dude asked me like 20 times with the same long winded spiel (apparently all 6'6" red bearded white dudes look the same) until i said "dude, you've come at with with the same story 20 times now, and technically, if i'm buying the milk, then you're not supporting your daughter"), i never did figure out the scam in that one, but i know it was there. and finally, while walking back from the subway with a lady friend, i saw an empty wine bottle sitting on the curb, i picked it up, put it in my back pocket and walked the 2 blocks to the nearest trash can to deposit it, as i was getting to the trash can, two ultra aggro lady cops swooped and gave me a ticket for open container, they also called in two dude cops for backup to write me a $25 ticket. judge dismissed it before i even was able to get up to the stand, but still had to take a day off work.

beyond those 3 incidents, neighboorhood was great. We were all involved in the community garden, we took part in what we could, and we were cool with all the neighbors, so i don't know, maybe i lived in the one pocket of sanity in crown heights, but I was never uncomfortable or felt threatened there, though i don't associate Black people with racial tension and violence automatically, i associate them with good conversation, real attitudes on living life and being happy, and delicious delicious food, so that may be why.

Also, so sad that dude got popped. That's some real deal monsterous violence right there. Truly feel horrible for the guy, and maybe even moreso for his little girl.

I too live in Crown Heights, and for people who don't live there i think it is very easy to generalize about this neighborhood. The main problem with that is that it is one of the biggest neighborhoods in bklyn. crown height north historic district is very different from the hassidic neighborhood to the south, and both are very different from the mentioned area to the east in crown heights.

It's a shame that this happened, no matter what neighborhood.

I think that you have all missed the fact that this is terrible. an athlete in NYC to compete for a tournament should not have to worry about being shot anywhere in NYC. Ban guns and make the world better.

"Ban guns and make the world better"...I'm ambivalent on the subject of gun control, but I'm willing to place a bet that this was not a legally held firearm -i.e. it was already a "banned" gun.

ummm, yeah, see, criminals don't give a shit if something is condoned by the law. so when you ban guns you just take them away from the people who probably wouldn't be using them in the first place.

what we should do is allow everyone to open carry, and after the 3-5 years of shit yourself terror and utter chaos that would ensue, everyone will have learned the ramifications of messing with someone who's packing first hand one way or the other, and then the world might be a better place to an extent (I highly doubt it, but it's probably statistically more probable than your la-la utopian banned guns world). Also, guns could totally clean up oil spills, shooting the ozone layer with guns will fix global warming, and starving baby girls in chinese orphanages can eat guns, and get an education from guns. Guns are the solution to all the worlds woes. just throwing that last stuff out there for the cognative disociates that are gonna jump in with the "you know what you gun nuts haven't considered..." comments.

i just wanna throw out that this went down is one of my favorite restaurants in the city (nytimes link below). i generally feel pretty safe over there...i gotta crew who live a block from there. this is awful :-(.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/dining/02jerk.html

Nice, I wanna check that place out. I really like The Islands in Prospect Heights (Washington, just north of Eastern Parkway). Their jerk chicken is ridiculous...

Welcome to Brooklyn?

Regardless of the large West Indian population, Crown Heights is ghetto. I live there, I know. There were two murders on my corner in the last few months. It's just bad.

And cheap is spelled "cheap" , not "cheep".

Commas and periods are placed before end quotes.

What you meant to write is:

'And cheap is spelled "cheap," not "cheep."'

See, we can all be obnoxious little copy editors.

Also, dismissing someone's overall points of view because of spelling and/or grammatical errors is really lame. Have you never made a mistake? That type of move just screams out classism, and it's pretty pathetic.

Also, I live in Crown Heights too, and I don't think it's ghetto. Perhaps you haven't ever really experienced a true "ghetto"? Let's put it into perspective (in terms of levels of ghetto): Charlotte -> East Village -> Crown Heights -> Camden -> Port Au Prince. I believe people in each area to the left could consider the areas to the right "ghetto". By the logic I've read above, anyone who dies in the East Village, Crown Heights, Camden, or Port Au Price basically deserves it because they shouldn't have been there in the first place. Damn, I'm moving to Charlotte.

Eastern Crown Heights is a ghetto by American standards, no question about it. There a few streets that have more violent crime than Utica Ave, Rochester Ave, and Buffalo Ave. Did you know over 50 people have been shot within the 77th precinct, which only covers the northern half of Crown Heights, this year? (The above crime actually occurred within the 71 pct) By any measure, that's a lot of shooting victims for only 8 months. By contrast, if you add up the number of shooting victims from all 12 Manhattan South precincts this year, you won't get a third of that number of victims. Btw, almost all of the shootings that have occurred in the East Village and LES over the last two or three years have happed occurred in close proximity to Ave D (which is still bad) and Madison St (which might be the most crime ridden block below Harlem).

Sorry, there are only 10 Midtown South precincts

One more thing that shows how absurd it is to compare crime in Crown Heights to East Village or Lower East Side:

This Year:

1st precinct + 5th precinct + 6th precinct + 7th precinct + 9th precinct + 10th precinct + 13th precinct + 14th precinct+ 17th precinct + 18th precinct + 19th precinct + 20th precinct + 22nd precinct = 11 murders (These are all of the Manhattan precincts that cover areas south of Harlem)

77th precinct (Half of Crown Heights) = 12 murders

to the East Village or the Lower East Side

Thanks for the free copy editing. I'll make sure to correct that before I submit my comments for publication in the MLA journal.

Your comment regarding Crown Heights is completely irrelevant. I live in Crown Heights as well and if all you know about the neighborhood is that it's "ghetto," then maybe you ought to get off your lazy white ass and move somewhere that better befits your superior status.

The fact remains that it's perfectly logical that this is the neighborhood where the unfortunate man, a soccer player from St. Lucia, would be celebrating his victory in the Caribbean Cup. Or maybe you could recommend some nice, safe hipster bars in Williamsburg for next year's tournament participants.

Here, I'll solve this impasse:

1) Mr. Know-it-All is right; it is completely logical that a West Indian would be in Crown Heights. But 2) Mondiggy is also right; Crown Heights is ghetto. How to reconcile this? Well, let's just say that Crown Heights is not ghetto despite the West Indians living there, basically just like most parts of the West Indies that have West Indians living there.

Would you consider yourself a racist?

No, I hate everyone equally.

I appreciate your skillful interpersonal mediation, but your international relations credentials remain questionable. Look, this isn't the place for a thoughtful discussion of the causes of poverty and the stresses it places on poor people and poor neighborhoods and the racism implicated in the whole dynamic. I would like to ask Mondiggy, however, since he/she "lives there" and "knows," what he/she might "know" about the two people killed on "his/her" corner. Do you know their names? If they have family in the neighborhood? Why they were killed? Have you ever stopped to talk to the non-white people in your neighborhood? Do you know your building super and his family? Do you know what your neighbors think about the fact that young white people keep moving in, and then moving up and out, while they remain generation after generation? Do you participate in your community's civic and social service organizations? Do you volunteer at the local library or senior center? Or do you just hang with your friends at that cool bar that opened in the 'hood where all the white kids go and talk about how "ghetto" the neighborhood is?

Heh. Ironically, my international relations credentials are actually pretty good, although, granted, focused on an area of the world very far away from the one in question. Anyway, while talking about racism is certainly worthwhile, I'm instantly wary of anyone who plays the racism card first thing out of the gate like you did. And it seems to be with good reason, because your battery of rhetorical questions elides some key issues which deserve not to be elided. To wit, you talk a lot about getting involved in the community, but c'mon, let's not pretend that when white people try to get involved in black communities, the reception is at best indifferent and usually outright hostile, because it's viewed as paternalistic, which it usually kind of is. As to what residents think about white people moving in and out - why does it matter? If that matters, then what residents of white neighborhoods think about black people moving in matters too (it may be worth mentioning here that 60 years ago, Crown Heights was 90% white). Do you want to go down that road?

Please note that I did not mention racism until my third comment--hardly "first thing out of the gate." And I'm frankly a little wary of anyone who FAILS to mention racism while calling a neighborhood "ghetto."

Thanks for not bothering to respond to either one of my substantive points. You must be too busy volunteering at the local library or senior center.

One thing at a time, dear. First, My questions were only partly rhetorical. Obviously they don't each apply equally in every situation. But to simply say that "well, black people don't want us involved in 'their' community anyway" is sort of eliding the issue too, isn't it? If you live there, it's your community as well and either you take some responsibility for what goes on there or you don't. It's no excuse that it may be difficult or uncomfortable to do so.

Also, I think it does matter what people think about how their neighborhood is changing. It feeds right into your previous issue about how new residents get involved in community organizing without being paternalistic. I just get tired of people (not you) crying "gentrification" as if that explained everything. It's a cop out and only places a barrier between new and old residents and between both of them and their community.

Here's the problem with that reasoning: if you take the position that white people moving to black neighborhoods have to be involved with the community if the black people already living there don't want them to be, that sets up two possible scenarios: 1) you basically tell them that you're here to help whether they like it or not, which just reinforces perceptions of paternalism and interracial resentment or 2) you get involved in things that will benefit those most like you, i.e., other white people moving to the neighborhood, and hope that some sort of trickle-down effect takes place, which isn't much better. If people don't want you there, you can't make them.

You're right that not everything boils down to 'gentrification' - I think very little boils down to gentrification, really - but there's a problem with the idea that people can have a say in how their neighborhood changes, which is that that idea goes both ways. Should an all-white community be able to have a say on whether a non-white person moves there? I think we rejected that idea a long time ago, no?

I've lived in Crown Heights for about 8 years now and have seen the neighborhood change drastically. While the neighborhood has had some serious problems through the years, I would hardly call this area "ghetto" anymore (fyi, I'm not West Indian or White). At the end of the day, it's irrelevant whether or not the area is "ghetto"--it's a tragedy, plain and simple. My friend saw a guy's throat slashed in the Lower East Side only a few years ago, and I hardly consider the LES "ghetto". Crime happens everywhere, and instead of placing the blame on the victim because he happened to be in Crown Heights, how about calling it a shame and a huge tragedy? If you were to be killed in Times Square (or perhaps blown up had the most recent bomb exploded), is it your fault for being in NYC? You'd have people in other parts of the world saying things like, "I would never live in NYC even if the rent was free." What about if your sister/mother/girlfriend was raped in the Upper East/West sides when the spiderman rapist was loose? Is it their fault for living in NYC? Instead of belittling this man's death because of where he was (the wrong place at the wrong time), let's blame the piece of shit who killed him instead.

Are you replying to MY comment? I said none of the the things you seem to be responding to.

why the motherfuck were tourists hanging out in crown fucking heights?

why does ANYONE go to crown fucking heights?

i wouldn't live there if rent was free and i wouldn't hang there if my best friends lived there.

First, he's not a tourist. He's been here since May participating in a soccer tournament. Next, Crown Heights has the largest West Indian population outside of the West Indies. Where else would West Indian soccer players and fans hang out after winning a soccer tournament played nearby in Flatbush, which also has a massive Caribbean population. Where should they go celebrate? The Lower East Side? Williamsburg? Finally, why don't you learn a little something about the city you choose to live in. I mean something other than where the cheep rent and cheep beer are.

Good point. I'm not sure I agree with the rent and beer part.

Rest in Peace.

New York City is becoming a war zone.

Ray Kelly has to go!

It's only becomes a war zone when white people start to becoming cannon fodder otherwise it's business as usual for Ray and Mike.