Monday, June 24, 2024

[Updated] A look at 14th Street this morning after the triple stabbing and homicide yesterday

Updated 4 p.m.

The suspect, 30-year-old Alejandro Piedra of Brooklyn, has been charged with one count of second-degree murder — depraved indifference and two counts of second-degree attempted murder — depraved indifference, according to the NYPD and media reports.

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This morning, the NYPD Crime Scene Unit and various media vans remain on the scene along 14th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue. (Previously.) 

Just before 6 p.m. yesterday, a fight broke out between several people on the block. In the end, police say, a 38-year-old man was stabbed in the neck and later died. A 51-year-old woman was knifed in the leg and taken to a hospital in critical condition, while a 32-year-old man was stabbed in the back and hospitalized. The two hospitalized victims are expected to survive, according to published reports. 

A 30-year-old man is in police custody. His relationship with the stabbing victims isn't clear. 

An employee at the cheap-slice pizzeria at 418 E. 14th St. told the Daily News that she saw a man in a cape and another waving a piece of wood start fighting outside the shop. 
"I was just doing my job and I saw a man with a 2-by-4 and a man with a cape and a knife. I was like, 'This is like Looney Tunes.'" 
Longtime EVG reader Notorious shared these photos from this long-troubled stretch of the East Village. 

A few residents told us they were shocked to see pools of dried blood and rubber gloves from the first responders on the sidewalk this morning ...
City Councilmember Keith Powers, whose district starts on the north side of 14th Street in Stuy Town, issued this statement yesterday, calling 14th Street "out of control." Updated 11 a.m.:

District 2 City Councilmember Carlina Rivera has released a statement... And from Assemblymember Harvey Epstein...

42 comments:

  1. I expect the city will respond to this by giving out sanitation violations to the business which has the misfortune of having leases there. if you own a small pizza spot are really your responsibility to clean up after broken and underfunded agencies. If only the city would stop letting tech companies like GrubHub, Uber and others profit from our shared infrastructure and charge them a percentage of every ride or food order, perhaps then we might have the funds to handle this homeless and drug addiction problem. Adams is over his head and Manhattan is sinking,

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    1. Taxing the delivery apps means taxing the consumer, since they'll pass the new charge to you. Like they did with the new $2 charge to cover their minimum wage law costs. The audacity. They don't even hide the reason for that charge.

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  2. @noble neolani

    While I don't disagree with the abstract premise of taxing the delivery apps, the details would be a big project, relating it to the situation on 14th street is a very funny EVGrieve comments threadjack.

    Regarding crazies congregating in front of the L train stairs a long enough police presence to move the problem elsewhere might work. Regarding "shared infrastructure" reach out to big real estate and see if they have some ideas.

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    1. "move the problem elsewhere" great solution right there. Not

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  3. Surely this incident will be the straw that broke the camel's back and compel the city to take action to clean up that stretch for good. Have a 24/7 police presence and zero tolerance for the illegal vendors, and get the church to shut down its flea market permanently.

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  4. Meanwhile the mayor is in the Hamptons.

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  5. This is not about a continued NYPD presence. This is about providing for people who need assistance and not simply pushing them to another corner, so you don't see them.

    Until the world wants to address the housing and houseless crisis in a serious way, it will never end. We need a Mayor that wants to solve problems and not simply throw NYPD more overtime dollars.

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  6. Glad I don't live in the EV Warzone anymore. Here in my Lake Havasu City AZ house with pool we don't even have to lock our doors and the most violent crime is an occasional domestic violence arrest. We have a room for rent with its own AC and fridge for $500 a month in case anyone nice wants out of that hellhole

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    1. Arizona? That’s where you moved to? Sheesh. Have fun with that. We will just have to enjoy our hellhole without ya

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    2. Please lock your doors. Doesn't matter where you live.

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    3. Arizona. Hahahahha. You're kidding right!

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  7. Rivera's statement is insufficient. Violent individuals without any ability to control themselves or make decisions on their own behalf should be restrained from committing additional violence.

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  8. @John Penley: But then you have to live in Lake Havasu City; I've been there so I can say: NO THANKS and NO WAY!

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  9. @ 12:13 - Give us your address and we'll send them to your place until they get help. Until then, they can get off the sidewalk where I, a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen, walk my child.

    Mental illness and a desire to peddle drugs and stolen goods does not give someone the right to make the lives of tens of thousands of others worse just because a couple naive idealists don't want to admit the realities of this world. End of story. And like I said, if you disagree, please send us your address so you can house these people outside your home.

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  10. And no mention of this horrific crime not long ago. Forgotten already?

    Man charged with killing a doctor, fatally slashing ...

    Yahoo Autos
    https://autos.yahoo.com › man-charged-killing-doctor-f...
    Dec 27, 2022 — 19 outside Spike's Bar on Avenue A near 13th Street. There, James Cunningham, 51, was slashed in a horrifying attack that left a gaping 10 ...

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  11. Public safety (by any means necessary I would add) should be at the top of Rivera's statement. Not last.

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  12. @12:13PM

    Sure. But while we wait for the political will involved in "providing for people who need assistance" something needs to be done about an unsafe situation. Do you have any ideas or do we just wait for massive changes in the mental health apparatus? I know how to keep my eyes open but there are a lot of baby strollers and commuters flowing down that street hourly.

    Another note, and this will come up every time in these discussions, some adults make a career decision to be street crazies. They need help, though their definition of help probably varies from yours, but the public needs to be protected if they are getting violent. And they do.

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  13. @12:!3-" Until the world wants to address the housing and houseless crisis in a serious way, it will never end."

    Great suggestion, but the money and funding, at least in NY, is being allocated for other more pressing needs.

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    1. “Pressing needs” like the mayor’s plan for a new quarter of a BILLION dollar police center in Queens…

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    2. What "more pressing needs" are you referring to?

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  14. I have t walked down that block in years

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  15. What in the world is happening to NYC? I am sad and scared right now. Good grief. Multiple stabbings during the day in front of Trader Joes? It all feels surreal.

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  16. Let’s start fixing problems instead of making everything political.

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  17. Business owners on this block met with the NYPD this morning to discuss what can be done. By early afternoon, as they were power washing the baked blood off of the sidewalk, the "can you spare a dollar for a cheeseburger" addict was back out there harassing people.

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  18. Didn’t the Mobile store T-Mobile on 14th Street there have its windows smashed several times? My barber, between Trader Joe’s and Immaculate, was chased from this location because Carlina Rivera allowed the homeless encampments and vendors to operate unperturbed by law enforcement. I hope the NYPD will listen to the local business owners on the block, but what if the police are being hamstrung by political entities?

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  19. Why does this usually happen during a heatwave? Sad part is after a few days things on this street will be back to its horrible self, u til the next incident. Be careful neighbors.

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  20. The difference between an effective elected official and a poor one is the effective ones offer real concrete solutions to problems, while the poor ones talk vaguely about bringing together stakeholders to come up with ideas because they have no ideas to offer themselves.

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  21. To whoever said, “Let’s start fixing problems instead of making everything political,” are there non-political solutions?

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  22. I would bet money this young man has a prior criminal record and has an undiagnosed mental illness. I wonder if he will be sent to prison or sent to a psychiatric ward. Just tragic all around, especially for the victims and deceased.

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  23. Hi John at 12:16 pm

    Comparing Lake Havasu, AZ to the East Village of Manhattan is a non sequitor. I'll take NYC over the desert any day, especially since I grew up in Nevada and couldn't wait to get the F out. I prefer diversity, culture, history, seasons, and opportunity over the insufferable 100 + heat several months during the year and lack of inclusion with little to no career advancement. This "hellhole" has been home for almost 24 years.

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  24. The representative for this area and those other ones who made statements have discretionary funds so while they pass the buck on this I ask why not use some of these funds to hire additional security and cleaning for the block ???


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  25. Every time I drove by there I thought that block looked dangerous, just had a bad feeling about it.

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  26. The gentleman killed has been aggressive for a long time, that doesn’t deserve death though. I’m concerned this will end the flea market. The people who pay for tables there are kind and respectful.

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  27. Delivery apps are the new slavery.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/business/delivery-workers-thefts-neighborhood-watch.html

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  28. let's focus on helping the mentally ill and vulnerable and separate that from vendors who are simply trying to earn an honest living. I love the flea market, it is one of the last vestiges of the old east village. hope they don't try to make an example ofit. we need outreach teams to help the disturbed. deblasio had a number you could and trained professionals would come to help in a non threatening ways believe they were the brown squad or wore brown shirts. we need that agai .

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  29. I’m disappointed with Rivera’s response. Can’t there be some accountability to clean up a street where someone was killed rather than making a vague statement about mental health services. Welp, I guess we get what we vote for.

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  30. A late comment as I wanted to look up a few things up first. In response to comments about the City needing to spend money on housing and homelessness, I was curious how much we are spending. It was surprisingly (?) difficult to find an summary across programs, but here are a few data points: the City Dept. Of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) estimated 2024 operating budget is $1.96 billion, of which $862 million is a City funds (local tax dollars). For 2025, the projected budget figures are $1.8 billion and $979 million, respectively. This appears to include about $200 million for NYCHA operating costs. (Source: NYC OMB website and NYCHA annual report.) HPD is also budgeted to receive $2.1 billion in capital funding next year (borrowed money that the City repays over time), a figure currently being negotiated with the City Council (source: various news report.) The Dept. Of Homeless Services (DHS) current year budget is estimated at $3.9 billion, of which $2.2 billion is City expense money. The projected figures for the fiscal year starting July 1 and $3.9 billion and $2.4 billion, respectively. ((Source:OMB.) The City runs a housing voucher program called FHEPS, which subsidizes individual rents and is currently a focus of litigation between the Mayor and Council, which has voted to massively expand eligibility (without budgeting for the expense.) The existing FHEPS has come in each year way above budget and cost $636 million last year (source: NYC Citizens Budget Commission.) I don’t know which agency FHEPS expense is budgeted under. There are also “tax expenditures”, or revenues foregone due to tax breaks for affordable housing. The best known such program, 421a, costs the City over $1 billion/year (multiple sources.)
    I hope this is helpful. For context, I would add that NYS and its localities have the highest tax rates in the country, 63% above the national average, and the second highest level of government expenditures after Alaska (this is from 2021 data and both taxes and expenditures have risen since then). I think it’s fair to ask if we could be getting more for our money.

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  31. @7:24 AM
    According to Carlina Rivera'a statement, she has contacted the NYPD, Bellevue, the Manhattan DA, the Sanitation Department, and the Archdiocese. That sounds fairly comprehensive and specific, but your suggestions?

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  32. Another dialed-in statement of vagueness from Rivera, whose main accomplishment has been voting to approve bulldozing a 52-acre park for a sterile flood wall capped with artificial turf fields and a few saplings.

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  33. ~$10.8 billion for the NYPD to stand around playing Candy Crush in the subway.

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  34. Three months later and another stabbing this past Friday at the 14th Street and First Avenue L station. Where is this $1 million-Mobile Command Center the mayor promised the East Village?

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