Suspect Arrested in Last Month’s Grand Avenue Murder Just as Another Shooting Happens
It’s been a rough spring on Grand Avenue in Clinton Hill. In mid-March, longtime Grand Avenue resident Gilbert Kelly was shot dead on one of the stoops where he often spent the night between Gates and Putnam. The police wire yesterday announced the arrest of a suspect in the March shooting, an 18-year-old kid who’d…
It’s been a rough spring on Grand Avenue in Clinton Hill. In mid-March, longtime Grand Avenue resident Gilbert Kelly was shot dead on one of the stoops where he often spent the night between Gates and Putnam. The police wire yesterday announced the arrest of a suspect in the March shooting, an 18-year-old kid who’d already been arrested and released last year.
And yesterday, according to emails we received from neighbors, there were several shots fired at the Clean Society cleaners up the street at the corner of Clifton Place, a longtime hotbed of suspicious activity. From what we gather, the owner was shot several times but not killed, escaping to the community garden next door. One tipster said he saw DEA agents taking cash and drugs out of the storefront.
We’ve been living on this stretch of Grand Avenue for almost a decade and have been hearing the excuses from law enforcement that entire time about how hard it is to crack down on the drug trade that is obviously at the root of much of the violence in this area. Like most residents, we suspect, we feel this has become a pretty tired line when everyone in the neighborhood knows the problem spots and has witnessed plenty of illegal activity themselves.
In the end, we don’t believe it is a question of whether the drug trade and the culture of violence around it can be stopped. It’s a matter of resources and political will. Back in 2009, former D.A. Joe Hynes teamed up with the Brooklyn North division of NYPD to put Operation Grand Slam into effect. (This followed a similar blitz in 2006.) They ended up arresting a couple of dozen people and indicting 11 but were not able to keep the pressure on, and new bad guys simply stepped in and filled the void. We need sustained pressure to adequately address this situation and we need it now.
We would humbly suggest that now would be a great time for new D.A. Thompson to put his head together with the new captain of the 88th Precinct, Peter Fiorillo, and clean this area up once and for all. Platitudes at community meetings aren’t getting the job done.
I didn’t know, but that does explain the stream of bleary-eyed people buying cigars from the Egyptians across the street. I thought they were just Pratt students.
are you serious? you don’t smoke crack/heroin out of white owls.
I think you can mix crack and heroin with pot and tobacco and put it in a cigar? There’s probably even a zippy name for that.
Then again, I could be wrong. I just buy fancy beer.
The Police Department has nothing to do with protecting people or property. It is all about revenue collecting.
The current “In” revenue is issuing moving violations to drivers.
There is no money in getting rid of drug dealers, they need to keep a few around otherwise they may be demoted to traffic cops or mere tax collectors.
I’m usually the last to know about these things but I had no idea about the cleaners. Back in 2008 before I officially moved to Brooklyn, I subletted a place in Clinton Hill for the summer. And I actually took my clothes to that cleaners. I remember thinking wow, the owner sure does have a lot of friends- because as I was dropping off my clothes people who had no dry cleaning business kept coming in and out. They did such a horrible job on my clothes I never went back and every time I passed, I wondered how they stayed in business. Now, I know!
Nobody who”s lived in this area for more than a year and kept their eyes open is amazed and surprised. This is ancient history. But “Stop using drugs and crime in your neighborhood will plummet”? Tell that to an addict. And FWIW, we see them in the Wall St variety too – in suits and briefcases and fancy cars – just as frequently as not. There are some things that gentrification doesn’t change, unless the buildings in question actually change hands. The big question: Is DA Thompson amazed and surprised? And whether he is or not, now that he lives on Cambridge with a daily view of this stuff, will he do anything about it? Or will it just be more platitudes at community meetings, and “eyes and ears” nonsense like we’ve gotten for decades? Perhaps today’s activity at 417 Grand is reason for some hope. We’ll wait and see.
lol – that’s quite the oversimplification of a complex issue.
@DH: Yup, that’s really a cleaners – where you take your clothes if you want to pay to get them back smelling like pot. Lived on the block for decades, don’t know anybody who takes their stuff there. Not exactly a secret, but the 88th has never seemed to be concerned about it…you know the drill, we’re supposed to “be their eyes and ears,” since they hear and see no evil.
fare jumping requires less paperwork.