Results tagged “othnielaskew”

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn struck Sonny Carson's name from a list of of New Yorkers to be honored with a street named after them because she thought the political activist was too divisive a figure. Carson was a proponent of black economic empowerment and was distemperate in his views of other New York groups (e.g., whites, Jews, Koreans). Councilman Charles Barron, who shares Carson's past as a radical activist, thought Carson's exclusion from the list was more divisive than anything Carson had ever done, and indeed, voting on an amendment Wednesday to re-add his name split almost entirely down racial lines and the session was extremely acrimonious.

CBS 2 showed a video of City Councilman James Davis and his killer, Othniel Askew, right before the July 23, 2003 shooting, and it's really spooky. Here's CBS's description of what happens:

The tape shows Davis and assassin Othniel Askew enter the council chambers. Davis joins a group of other members during a presentation as Askew stands along the wall. The tape also shows just how close Askew was standing to plainclothes police officer Richard Burt, who moments later would shoot and kill him.

Continue reading "City Hall Shooter and Victim on Tape"

The Daily News finds that security is "still a myth" at the City Counci's 250 Broadway location. The Times meets up again with Detective Richard Burt, who was the police officer who shot Askew. Burt said, "there was a lot of confusion," but was able to react quickly. And right after the shooting, Burt had received a promotion.

The only bright thing to come from the City Hall shooting, and it's only bright because of a tragedy, is the promotion of Police Officer Richard Burt to Detective, after his quick thinking and actions on Wednesday, killing Othniel Askew who had shot Councilman James E. Davis. Mayor Bloomberg praised, "Thankfully, we will never know what would have happened had Officer Burt not been there, been so quick on his feet and been so accurate with his gun," during the swearing in ceremony (pictures). Officer Burt had been 40 feet away, and gun experts tell Newsday that shots with that kind of accuracy, under those circumstances, are very impressive. Detective Burt plans to stay at City Hall.

As an aide tells Newsday, "Security is a joke. It's a well-known fact among City Council workers. I'd hate to say it, but it wouldn't be the hardest thing to get a gun in there . . . Frankly, they put one cop at each metal detector and they have a lot of people going through, and it wouldn't be very hard for somebody to just walk by it."