View Sunset Park Murders 2010 in a larger map
Click on the map above to see details of this year’s murders in Sunset Park

This story has received a ton of coverage in the local papers, including Crazed ex-con shot dead by NYPD officer Tara Hayes pulled trigger to shoot her partner first: police in the Daily News and Pistol-packing Brooklyn thug tried shooting at police before hero cop shot him in the Post. As you can probably tell from the headlines, the dailies have dug into the story of the gun-wielding Michael Romero, an ex-con who yesterday threatened three plainclothes officers with a .357 pistol and was ultimately to death by NYPD Officer Tara Hayes on the edge of Green-Wood Cemetery in Sunset Park. Sunset Park Chronicled’s original coverage is below, but rather than try to update the story with all of the details appearing in local papers, I’ve linked to them. In addition to its print coverage, the Post has video of the scene, as does NY1 (interesting that one of the men interviewed by NY1 said their were multiple shots. The NYPD said Hayes’ shot was the only one fired).

Police shot and killed a man in Sunset Park after he approached a car of plainclothes officers and waved a gun, according to Inspector Jesus Raul Pintos of Brooklyn’s 72nd precinct.

The shooting happened April 1 around 2:15pm as three plainclothes officers from the Brooklyn Anti-Crime Unit patrolled the area near Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn looking for a suspect in a robbery investigation.

The officers were driving near 33rd and Fifth Avenue yesterday when they spotted a man who fit the description of a robbery suspect, police said. As they pulled the car over, the man, identified as Michael Romero,32 30, approached the driver’s side window with what was later discovered to be a loaded silver .357 Rossi pistol, according to police and the New York Times. When the male officer in the driver’s seat began to struggle with the man for the gun, the female officer in the passenger seat got out of the car and fired one shot, hitting the man in the shoulder, according to the Times.

The bullet traveled through his shoulder into his chest, according to the Daily News.

Romero was rushed to Lutheran hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Police say they recovered the pistol that sparked the struggle at the scene. The man was also in possession had a loadedHe had in his backpack a loaded .44 revolver and a gallon-sized of marijuana and “two wallets stuffed with cash,” according to the New York Post. police said, though it is still unclear if these were on his person when he was shot yesterday.

Police have not said if the man killed was the same who they had been seeking in connection with the robbery.

Police have opened a homicide investigation in the death of a man found with his throat slashed at the scene of a fire on 56th Street last Tuesday, according to Jesus Pintos, deputy inspector of the 72nd precinct. It looks, sadly, like Sunset Park is following a recent uptick in murders throughout the city.

Burglaries in the 72nd Precinct are up 120 percent from this time last year, due in large part to a recent spate in Sunset Park. Shoddy locks and improper safety measures have a lot to do with it, Inspector Pintos said. Police recommend taking basic precautions–make sure doors are shut properly when you leave the house, and replace old or flimsy locks and bolts.

Two men in their early 20s were badly stabbed near Greenwood Cemetery on March 16, the Inspector said. Carlos Perez and Fernando Simon were walking along on 26th Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues when they were confronted by one or two men. Perez and Simon were rushed to Lutheran hospital where last week they remained in critical condition. Police said the investigation is ongoing.

Things do look a bit grim, but here is some perspective: while crime may be up 12.32 percent this year in the 72nd precinct, it is down 21.92 percent from this time in 2008.

(7:07 p.m.) A 35-year-old home health care worker in Brooklyn was arrested on Thursday on charges she fatally beat with her fists or an object the 67-year-old woman she was supposed to be caring for, a law enforcement official told the New York Times.

Read more below…

(3:25pm) A home home health aide has been charged with the murder of the 67-year-old Sunset Park woman in her care.

Aide Yamilette Hidalgo had on ongoing dispute with patient Maria Torres, neighbors told WABC.

Hidalgo, 33, called police at about 11am on March 24 to report she had found her patient dead on the bathroom floor in Torres’ apartment at 558 50th St. Hidalgo told officers a man had burst through the door and knocked her unconscious. Hidalgo said she found Torres after coming to. But police charged Hidalgo with the murder after investigation “revealed that Mrs. Hidalgo’s story was…fabricated,” Deputy Inspector Jesus Raul Pintos wrote in an email.

Police told WABC the frail Torres fell in the course of the dispute Wednesday morning and subsequently died.

Hidalgo confessed yesterday evening, according to police.

The man murdered in the early hours of March 10 in Sunset Park has been identified as Hang Yu Chen of 55th Street. He was found shot in the chest at about 4 a.m. on 53rd Street, WABC reported. “We’re pretty much where we were the day of,” said Deputy Inspector Jesus Raul Pintos of the 72nd Precinct, but the investigation is ongoing.

The body of a man was found in the backyard of a burning row house on 56th Street in Sunset Park early Tuesday morning.

The body of a man in his 30s was found with his throat slashed in the backyard of a house ablaze on 56th Street in Sunset Park, the Daily News reported.

The fire at 322 56th Street, set the street alight at 1:22am Tuesday morning. More than 100 firefighters spent 90 minutes extinguishing the blaze, according to the Daily News. Eight sustained minor injuries.

The man found sprawled in the back yard was bleeding from a laceration at the neck, and was declared dead at the scene, said Jesus Raul Pintos, deputy inspector of the 72^nd Precinct. Police are investigating the death, but have not declared it a homicide.

“His body was found in the behind the building,” said Melissa Velez, whose aunt and grandparents live in the house next door. “We heard someone threw the body out the window.”

Velez’s aunt Janet Morales lives with her parents in the house, and awoke early Tuesday morning to find the house next door burning. She rushed her two sons and her parents onto the street, and fire crews soon arrived.

The family was safe, but their house was not, said Morales, 40. Firefighters used her front room to help put out the blaze, leaving water damage that has seeped from Morales’ apartment on the third floor down to the foundation.

“It was a terrible experience,” she said.

Morales’ family and neighbors have complained to police and buildings inspectors about people passing in and out of the vacant building next door for years, Morales said. Police too have tried to do something about the structure, but have had little success contacting the bank that now owns the house, Pintos said.

Neighbors across the street said they often saw people lingering outside the house. One man in his twenties made it a regular post, they said, and often stumbled around as if drunk. They didn’t believe anyone lived in the building, but people regularly seemed  to come up from Third Avenue and walk in and out. The door, to anyone willing to walk up and test it, was open.

“We tried to call the bank too after someone tried to rob my grandfather’s house,” said Melissa Velez. “And then this.”

At about 5pm, Velez stood with an umbrella and a baby carriage, watching an emergency team clean out the contents of her aunt and grandparents’ house. Detectives with notepads passed up and down the block, asking neighbors what they had seen. But the investigation was not the first thing on Velez’s mind. Her aunt and grandparents must vacate the row house where they have lived for decades.

Janet Morales came down the stairs, surrounded by family. They had been in the house, looking at the damage, and what they might salvage.

“I lost everything,” Morales said.

They were heading to Fifth Avenue to buy some clothes. Morales looked at her violet fingernails, “Maybe I’ll get my nails done,” she said. “They got all messed up.”

Morales laughed, the ring a little hollow. “I’m trying to make the best of it,” she said.

A 30-year-old man was found shot multiple times early this morning in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, WABC reported. Police say the body was discovered on 53rd street just before 4 a.m. He was taken to Lutheran Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. No arrests have been made yet, according to WABC.

Crime rose last week in comparison with one year ago. Robbery and burglary in particular are up–500 and 300 percent, respectively. The 28 day statistics also show more robberies, assaults, grand larcenies and particularly burglaries have increased. The  overall crime rate, however, is still nearly 50 percent lower than nine years ago.  So, what do things feel like on the streets? Do you feel safer, or less safe? Leave a comment or drop a line to sunsetparkchron@gmail.com.

Want to keep up with CompStat or see how the 72nd precinct compares to areas around the city? You can look at all precinct statistics here on nyc.gov.

Mapped here are the eight murders that took place in the 72nd precinct during 2009. Click on the figures to see details the circumstances of each death

New York last year celebrated the lowest murder rate since the city began to keep statistics in the 1960s, but Brooklyn’s 72nd precinct bucked the citywide trend with eight murders, one more death than in 2008.

The precinct, which patrols Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights and Sunset Park, in 2009 saw a 14.3 percent jump in murders since last year, and 33.3 percent since 2001. Homicides have however dropped 55.6 percent since 1993–the city saw an annual average of 2000 murders during the early nineties.

The victims and those arrested for the murders in the 72nd have for the large part been young men. Of the eight people killed (one of which was a woman) not one had celebrated a thirtieth birthday. Of the three men accused of murder, not one had reached 25. The murders were concentrated in the second half of the year–seven of the eight took place since August.

Overall crime in the 72nd dropped ten percent in the twelve month period, and nearly 40 percent since 2001. While felony assault and burglary showed only modest reductions, the year marked a 22 percent reduction in both robberies and car thefts. Rapes, however, rose 57 percent, from seven in 2008 to 11 last year.

View 2009 Murder in Sunset Park, Brooklyn in a larger map

The plastic-wrapped body of a Brooklyn teen found Christmas Eve morning was dumped on 27th Street from the back of a truck, then hidden under a car four hours later, according to an article in El Diario de la Prensa. Read the full story

Two gunman wearing “Scream” masks shot and killed a suspected gang member in broad daylight last week, the New York Daily News reported. The shooting occurred at 11:30am on Clara Street in Kensington, a neighborhood east of Sunset Park.

Andrea Swalec at CUNY Journalism followed up, and found residents in Kensington dissatisfied with the 66th Precincts crime-fighting efforts.

The 66th is one of several Precincts that has seen an uptick in homicides this year, a Jewish blog reported earlier this summer. The statistics cited do not include the five homicides that have taken place in Sunset Park since the end of August.