Tragedy on West Indian American party day

WELCOME TO THE COLUMN… NEW YORK CITY CONNECTION..! 

Tragedy on West Indian American party day… What should have been a celebration day to the West Indian American Day Parade attendees at Brooklyn turned out into a senseless, chaotic and violent outbreak when an altercation among rival gangs unleashed an intense shooting in Bedford Avenue with Sullivan Place. Hundreds of innocent witnesses were involved in an improvised war zone that claimed several victims, among them one of Governor Cuomo administration lawyers, Carey Gabay, who unfortunately got fatally shot in his head while he was enjoying the celebration with his family.  Preliminary research concluded that Gabay was just a crossfire victim, and not a predetermined target of the delinquents that, according to NYPD speakers, carried out at least thirty gunshots that fateful day. “It’s so painful, so unnecessary, so sad…”, lamented Governor Cuomo after finding out his colleague’s fate. Tragically, the Jamaican-born lawyer died a few days later, reactivating the discussion regarding  firearms tendency in American streets..  “I do not know what it would take for the country to come to its senses with gun violence”, concluded Cuomo. Along with the shootings, some pedestrians were stabbed just minutes before the beginning of a parade that has been sadly linked to an increasingly high number of violence outbursts over the years. 

Possible NYPD abuse of power?

From the absurd of street violence we focus on other of the city’s main problems: racial prejudice and xenophobia. At least those are the charges with which 34 year old urban artist Miru Kim has accused some New York Police Department officers after being interrogated at street level. Her crime? Wearing a T-Shirt with Arabic text on it while she was walking the dog in Greenwich Street, next to the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan. As she personally recounted to Gothamist, they asked for all her personal data while asking her in an intimidating way about the meaning of the apparently controversial text, which in the end turned out to be part of an anti-Irak war movement originated in 2006. Loyal to the movement mantra (We Are Not Silent), Kim has shared her uncomfortable experience through the social networks as a vivid example of the psychosis that sometimes can affect the security forces whose top priority these days is to be alert to possible threats while Pope Francis and the UN dignitaries land in the city.

#Pizzarat takes over the Internet!

Yep, you read it well. Every New Yorker who pretend to live up to its name has his own personal story regarding a rat encounter in the gritty New York City underground, but regardless of your own personal feelings rodent-wise it is just impossible not to smile at the video that during the last days has jumped from Youtube to the country’s main late shows: a rat going down the stairs, trying (with moderate success) to carry a full slice of pizza just before chewing a small piece. The rest of the animal kingdom answer to this unexpected sympathy outburst towards what has traditionally being considered as an urban plague was not long in coming, and shortly the Internet returned with a big “aaaaw” in the shape of a Brooklyn pizza-eater squirrel bending the slice properly with its little claws.

Happily, animals are always out there to lift our spirits after digesting human-related news… See you!