Four Killed in a Few Hours in Bronx and Brooklyn

By SHARON OTTERMAN
Published: June 26, 2010

Three people were killed in Brooklyn and another in the Bronx early Saturday, and the three Brooklyn killings occurred within a six-block radius in Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant, the police said. There was no evidence that any of the killings were related.

At 1:17 a.m., officers found a 22-year-old woman bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds on the ground at Hancock Street and Bushwick Avenue, the police said. She was pronounced dead on arrival at Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center.

Carol Vaughn, 57, was watching television when she heard the gunshots. “At first I thought it was firecrackers,” she said. She left her home to watch as paramedics tried to revive the woman, whom Ms. Vaughn said she did not know. At the scene Saturday morning, dried blood stained the pavement around a pay phone.

Ms. Vaughn, who has lived in the neighborhood for 22 years, said she was caught off guard by the violence, because crime has been on the decline. By last week, there had been four killings this year in the precinct, the 83rd, down from five during the same time period last year, according to the police.

“The neighborhood has gotten really good,” Ms. Vaughn added. “Every now and then there’s something. But it’s not like it was.”

Later, at 2:39 a.m., the police responded to another call three blocks away and discovered the body of a 32-year-old man at Halsey Street and Wilson Avenue. He had been shot in the back, the police said. Hours later, a shrine to the victim, identified as Zacuron Horton, had been set up at the corner.

Mr. Horton's family gathered at the home of his mother, Denise, on Saturday afternoon. "He was a good boy. He didn't bother too many,"
she said.

"I'm really confused," Ms. Horton said. "We're just trying to find out what happened on the corner."

Mr. Horton, a former United Parcel Service employee who was on disability, had two children, a 3-year-old daughter and a boy, 6, who had just finished kindergarten. His cousin Nyquone McMorris said the police hoped to find a surveillance video from the scene.

At 2:46 a.m., officers in the neighboring 81st Precinct responded to a report of a man with a stab wound to his chest at Halsey Street and Reid Avenue. The victim, Kevin Grandison, 26, was pronounced dead on arrival at Kings County Hospital, the police said.

On Saturday afternoon, the police arrested Glen King, 34, and charged him with second-degree homicide in connection with Mr. Grandison's death. The address provided for Mr. King is near the corner where Mr. Grandison's body was found. Mr. Grandison also lived nearby, and, according to his sister Tonia Williams, he was stabbed “over a stupid argument.”

“I don’t know much more than that,” Ms. Williams said from the stoop of the house where Mr. Grandison had lived. “I love him, and he will be deeply missed.”

Thomas Gilliam, 49, a cousin, said that he had heard the commotion in the moments before the stabbing, and that he believed the argument had begun a block away, though he did not know what it was about. He said that Mr. Grandison was about to become a father, and was going to start working with him next week at a warehouse job in Manhattan.

“He was a good dude,” he said. “Everyone in the neighborhood liked him.”

Homicides have been on the rise this year in the 81st Precinct, with nine reported as of June 20, up from six during the same period last year.

The Bronx killing occurred shortly after midnight in Soundview when Anna Maria Silva, 40, was fatally stabbed in a bedroom of her apartment on Watson Avenue, the police said. A man who the police said was known to the victim then called 911 and turned himself in when officers arrived.

The man, Fabian Faulkner, 26, was charged with murder and possession of a weapon, the police said, adding that a knife was recovered at the scene.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/nyregion/27slay.html?src=me&ref=nyregion