Harlem’s Bloody Past Is Reluctantly Revisited
When the gunfire started, Donald Banks crouched behind a parked car on Lenox Avenue, not sure where the bullets were coming from and not caring, as long as they did not get too close.
People in the streets after shootings in Harlem on Monday night.
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Eugenia Stinson, at a press conference on 125th Street on Tuesday, a day after her son was among seven people shot.
Two blocks away, Sandra Willoughby closed her eyes and cowered in the doorway of an apartment building, praying that whoever was shooting would not come her way. Scores of terrified people sprinted in the darkness.
Neither Mr. Banks, 37, nor Ms. Willoughby, 29, was hit Monday night, but six teenagers were wounded along a three-block stretch of Lenox Avenue in Harlem. On Tuesday, residents and the police continue to try to sort out exactly what had happened and why. Some said a dispute over a girl had spread wildly; others vaguely cited a turf war.
“It was like the Wild West, and I’m no cowboy,” said Mr. Banks, who said he was still feeling shaky a day after the shootings. “I was ducking like anybody else.”
Among those wounded were a 13-year-old boy who was shot in the thigh, a 15-year-old girl grazed in the forehead and a 16-year-old boy shot in the pelvis.
A 15-year-old boy was found with a .380 Hi-Point pistol near where the shootings occurred and was charged with criminal possession of a weapon. However, he has not been charged with any of the shootings, the police said. His name was not released.
The shooting reminded residents of Harlem’s not-too-distant past, when shootings were far more common in part because of the crack cocaine trade, which ravaged the neighborhood in the late 1980s and 1990s. And it juxtaposed uneasily with the new Harlem: For a while early Tuesday, for example, yellow police tape was up outside a Starbucks on Lenox Avenue.
The block where the police found shell casings — near the intersection of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue — has become a mix of the old and new, with the old quickly giving way. Sylvia’s restaurant, a Harlem institution, and a bodega are among the few older businesses that have survived. Other shops on the block include the Starbucks — a popular neighborhood gathering spot — and an M&T Bank.
Across the street is the six-year-old Harlem Center mall, where the tenants include a Planet Fitness gym, Washington Mutual Bank, Staples and an H&M clothing shop.
The gunfire erupted after a blue-sky-perfect Memorial Day in Marcus Garvey Park, with hundreds gathered for barbecues. The first reports of shots fired in the area came to the police Monday about 9:30 p.m. when a caller said someone had shot a gun in the air at the park.
About 40 minutes later, after a large crowd of teenagers had left the park, witnesses told the police about a shooting at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue. Witnesses later told detectives that they had seen at least two gunmen kneeling at that intersection, firing handguns, said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman.
At 10:16 p.m., a young man called 911 from 128th Street and Lenox Avenue to say he had been shot. Emergency services personnel found two teenagers shot there.
Over the next half-hour or so, four more teenagers, ages 13 to 18, were struck by bullets, as the gunman or gunmen apparently moved along Lenox. It was not clear whether the victims were shot randomly. Mr. Browne said there may have been as many as three gunmen. Police officials said ballistics tests were under way to determine how many weapons were used.
Many of the details of what happened Monday night remained unclear. The police said that in addition to the two people wounded at Lenox and 128th Street, three people were found near Lenox and 126th Street and another at Lenox and 127th Street. Fire Department officials, however, said one male victim with four bullet wounds had been picked up in front of the State Office Building at 125th Street and Lenox.
It is also unclear whether the victims had been shot where they were found or if they had managed to walk away, said Mr. Browne.
Five of the six victims remained hospitalized Tuesday in stable condition. The 15-year-old girl who had been grazed by a bullet was treated and released.
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