Mother Of Teen Killed On Boardwalk Blames Smoking Ban

At left, Tysha Jones, in a photo taken the day she was shot. At right, Iloune Driver is led out of the police station house.

A distraught mother of a teenage girl caught in the crossfire of a shooting on the Brighton Beach boardwalk says her daughter would be alive today if law enforcement officers weren't distracted by the parks smoking ban. "They so worried about someone smoking a cigarette when they should have been looking for guns," a tearful Cynthia Jones told the Post. Her daughter, Tysha, 16, was fatally wounded by a stray bullet, and four other men in their 20s were wounded, one critically.

Yesterday police arrested Iloune Driver, a 19-year-old East New York man with nine prior busts for gun, drug and robbery charges. Driver, whom police say is a Crips gang member, was collared while working at a Checkers restaurant in his neighborhood. He's been charged with second-degree murder and assault with intent to cause serious physical injury. Investigators are still on the hunt for at least one other shooter suspected in the Thursday shooting, which they believe was sparked after someone broke a bottle over someone's head on the hottest day of the year.

Police sources tell the Times, "The gunmen’s targets appeared to be a group of young men and women sitting on a railing. There was at least one common member in that group and the one involved in the earlier fight." And PIX 11 reports that as Driver was being led out of the police station last night, he "cried out above the sound of camera shutters and shouting reporters" to insist, "It wasn't me. It wasn't me."

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By John Del Signore in News on June 14, 2011 3:10 PM

Comments [rss]

j_jonik

No one is enforcing the ban on secretly poisoning smokers with unlabeled pesticide residues, dioxins from chlorine pesticides and bleached paper, cancer-causing radiation from certain phosphate tobacco fertilizers, heaps of untested, often toxic, non-tobacco additives, burn accelerants, addiction-enhancing additives, fake tobacco, and heaps of kid-attracting sweets, flavors, aromas and soothing substances.

Well...that's a joke...a dark one. There IS no ban on any of that, and there's no law requiring any labeling about it either. And the "concerned" anti-smoking officials don't even have the basic human decency to tell or warn anyone, or raise a peep of complaint. They are the best friends the cigarette cartel could have. This is The Pretend Enemy tactic. It works. Too bad.

So...who are the criminals? The "disobedient" persons using what they think, and are repeatedly told, is just tobacco? Or...the industries and complicit govt officials responsible for that mass poisoning and mass experimentation (without Informed Consent) on millions of people? Considering the tens and hundreds of thousands of deaths said to be caused by "smoking", how is it not mass murder?
Unwittingly (we hope), many people who just personally don't like this one kind of smoke, support evasion of criminal and civil responsibilities for what may be the worst corporate-government crime in history. Count the bodies and the costs...and note the social disruption and the corruption of law and even medical science.

Search up a site called "Fauxbacco" for references galore on this. Stop blaming the scapegoated smokers and the natural tobacco plant. Expose, blame, and prosecute, and sue, the perpetrators.

ONE_LESS_FIXED_GEAR

A Crips gang member works flippin' burgers at Checkers? My gawd, that's a complete joke. I though they were supposed to be completely badass, making their living off the proceeds of violent criminal enterprise. "Do you want fries with that?". Guess the member benefits don't really amount to much.

latinlad

how embarrassing

dogbertt

How can the cops "look for guns"? They get criticized when they "profile" and stop people to do just that. They can't win for losing with this crowd.

Samantha_Ga

19-year-old East New York man with nine prior busts for gun, drug and robbery charges. WHHATTT??

ronshapley

and working at Checker's........did he lie on his job application ?? "no priors"

Samantha_Ga

I just assumed Checker's didn't care, or didn't do a background check.

Just Billy

surely it had nothing to do with her daughter hanging around with gang members.

goodbyewren

That day I was on my way to have dinner at Tatiana restaraunt where this went down. I guess I was hanging out with gang members, too.

Gwinny

OK, so the innocent bystander in Tatiana wasn't hanging out with gang members... but apparently this poor girl was. You do see the difference, right?

Brian

Just Billy just gets it.

splicernyc

I'm sorry for the family and I understand why they would say what they did. The blame is on the garbage that did this. Wish they had put him away for life before this happened but sadly, no.

FU Boy

But, I thought the problem with the guns was in Kentucky and Penn. where the guns are sold - Mayor Bloomberg always says that's where the problem is!

And didn't the recent gun-buy-back program get all the guns off the streets of NYC? Are we not as safe as Mike says we are?

I tells ya, I'm outraged that the status quo continues in this paragon of a progressive city, under a fiscally responsible mayor and a president of change.

Paul Baidatsky

I don't get how ta fuck this kid was still allowed to be let into society with so many prior arrests.

nicemarmot

Well, when something this horrible happens to you you do kinda have to right to make dumb comments. But I'm thinking the people to blame are the ones who brought guns to the fucking beach.

etypical

why it some hang outs can't conclude until shots are fired? Can't you enjoy a party even if no one gets shot? Last one shot wins!! Stupid kids.

goodbyewren

That sounds more like she's blaming misplaced priorities than the ban itself.

Guest

Except that it's Parks Enforcement doing the smoking thing, not the police. That said, this woman must be in unimaginable grief - I'm not going to judge her for getting her facts wrong.