Blame Kimani Gray
By BOB McMANUS
A 16-year-old aspiring sociopath pulls a gun, aims it at cops and is shot to death in
response.
Actions have consequences.
Then his friends, to mark his passing, go on to trash the neighborhood ? looting a
pharmacy and beating at least two innocent people in the process.
You?d almost think it was Chicago. But no, it was East Flatbush, Brooklyn. And who
was to blame for all the mayhem? Why, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, of course.
Silly even to ask.
At least that?s Brooklyn City Councilman Jumaane Wlliams? take, as expressed
during a budget hearing Tuesday at City Hall.
Williams very precisely drilled into Kelly, taking great care to avoid specific
accusations, but also leaving no doubt that he holds the commissioner
fundamentally responsible for everything. Not the kid with the gun, not the culture
that led to the initial confrontation and certainly not the punks who ran riot in its
aftermath.
And, no doubt, Williams will explain in great detail today just how it was that Kelly &
Co. instigated last night?s rolling anti-cop temper-tantrum along Brooklyn?s Church
Avenue. It should be a tiresome tale. (How true)
Certainly he was in full throat Tuesday: ??t was more than just one incident? he
barked at Kelly ? which, from the councilman?s point of view, no doubt seems true.
From the perspective of the two cops suddenly staring down the barrel of a .38-
caliber revolver, however, it very much was one incident ? with life-and-death
implications. And that?s how it turned out: two cops alive; one youthful, but lethally
armed, criminal dead.
Better that nobody had died, of course. Even better if 16-year-old Kimani Gray ?
an apparent gang member with a hefty criminal record ? had left his gun at home
Saturday night. Or, at the very least, that he?d tossed it in a gutter instead of
pointing it at police officers.
Certainly this adds up to a profound personal tragedy ? for the kid, obviously; for
his family, and certainly for the cops, who must live with the outcome for the rest of
their lives.
But as a matter of public policy, the shooting was a textbook vindication of the
Bloomberg administration?s aggressive stop-and-frisk anti-illegal-gun practices.
The tactic is every liberal?s bugbear these days ? Jumaane Williams most of all.
It?s premised on the perfectly reasonable assumption that experienced street cops
develop a sixth sense about who?s carrying and who isn?t. Arrest enough of the
former, and soon you?ll have a lot more of the latter.
It?s not flawless, by any means. The majority of those stopped turn out to be clean
as a whistle.
But then there are the Kimani Grays of the world, who can be lethal beyond
imagination ? and they trump.
Indeed, the reality of contemporary urban crime speaks to the program?s efficacy ?
as even a casual glance at the bloody, stop-and-friskless cities of Chicago,
Philadelphia, Baltimore and Detroit will illustrate.
As Kelly put it last fall: ?If we had Chicago?s murder rate, [New York?s homicide]
total would be 1,224. If we had Philadelphia?s, 1,483; at Baltimore?s rate, 2,338 ?
and at Detroit?s, 3,635.?
In the event, New York finished the year with 419.
That?s not good enough for Williams, who?s been chewing on Kelly?s leg over stopand-frisk for years.
Sad to say, he?s not alone. All of the Democratic mayoral candidates ? while
walking various rhetorical tightropes ? have made it clear that when Mike
Bloomberg exits, stop-and-frisk as an effective anti-gun policy won?t linger either.
Clearly, Kimani Gray was oblivious, but thousands of others understand ? many
from bitter experience ? that going out with a gun can bring down upon them a
world of hurt. So far fewer of them do it here than elsewhere. Thanks, essentially, to stop-and-frisk.
This won?t last if policy changes effected by a new mayor, or edicts imposed by the
federal courts, make packing a gun as intrinsically risk-free here as it is in Chicago
and Detroit.
Those are the stakes ? Jumaane Williams? contrary views notwithstanding.
rmcmanus8@gmail.com
Officer smashed in the face with a
brick, 50 arrested in Brooklyn
protest
By DANA SAUCHELLI and JAMIE SCHRAM
A police officer was smashed in the face with a brick and 50 people were arrested
as unrest over a teenager shot dead by cops continued to plague a Brooklyn
neighborhood last night.
For the second time this week, swarms of youths roamed the streets of East
Flatbush armed with bottles and bricks. One of those arrested was the sister of 16-
year-old Kimani Gray, who police said pointed a loaded pistol at two officers before
they gunned him down Saturday.
Mahnefah Gray and most of the others were charged with disorderly conduct.
Robert Mecea Mahnefah Gray, the sister of Kimani Gray, was among those
arrested during Wednesday's protest.
?I was standing at the corner, on the sidewalk, and the cop said, ?You can?t stand
there.? said Tyreck Strachan, 13, after being released from the 67th Precinct station
house.
?I said, ?I?m on the sidewalk.? He started hitting me with a stick.?
Tension mounted after a planned 7 p.m. vigil for Gray. The teen?s parents did not
show up as expected, and within a few hours, as many as 200 furious protesters
started roaming the neighborhood, as they did Monday night.
They marched down Church Ave. toward the station house, where they splintered
off and ran amok. The officer who was hit was not seriously injured.
www.nypost.com/f/print/news/local/brooklyn/officer_smashed_protest_the_face_CKU7bdPOuXzUtQoYP9CWOM#axzz2NW3dJc4v
Last night?s trouble came after officials revealed yesterday that Kimani, a reputed
Bloods gang member, had been hit with seven bullets.
An autopsy showed he had been shot in the front and back ? indicating that he
was facing officers when the shooting began, a law-enforcement source said.
?He was facing them when he pointed the gun,? the police source said.
