Locals Shocked by Violent Crime
By Vinnie Rotondaro
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
COLUMBIA WATERFRONT DISTRICT — A bay breeze blew over the Brooklyn waterfront Friday as a throng of cops, detectives and crime scene investigators gathered inside the tiny courtyard of a thin, red-bricked apartment building on DeGraw Street.
From behind the stone courtyard hedge, the bagged body of a woman came into view, as it was hoisted by medical examiners onto a gurney and carted off into a waiting van.
Details of the case remained vague as of press time on Friday. The victim’s identity had not yet been released, but an initial police briefing found on the NYPD’s web site listed the victim as a Latina female in her late 20s or early 30s with multiple stab wounds to the body. Spokesmen from the 76th Precinct could only confirm that the body was discovered around 6:30 a.m. Friday morning.
A video surveillance camera towering distantly inside an adjacent pier cargo station may provide the only clues in the developing case.
The apparent murder came as a shock to area residents, who gathered together watching the grisly scene unfold. This kind of stuff just doesn't happen in their neighborhood, they said.
“What the hell is going on?” a man asked from his apartment stoop, gazing at the scene.
“Someone was stabbed. A woman,” his friend said, running over.
“Stabbed?”
“Yeah. It looks like they threw her body into the courtyard. Or maybe she was trying to ring the doorbell to get inside to safety. Who the hell knows?”
The man paused.
“Jesus,” he said softly, his eyes still fixed on the scene, “that hasn't happened around here for years.”
David Torrez, 47, a burly local dressed in overalls, remarked that the apartment building where the body was found rarely saw trouble.
“Hard-working people live there," he said. “Quiet, hard working people. No disturbances. Then today, you come, and it’s just Boom Bang. I hope they catch the guy.”
The apparent murder comes as yet another blow in a wave of violent crime that has swept through Brooklyn in recent days. Last Thursday three Bed-Stuy residents were shot, two mortally, inside a building on Van Buren Street. And in an incredibly bloody two-day period earlier last week, five East New York residents, including an 11-year-old girl, were shot, two dying as a result of their injuries.
The case at the waterfront, which is currently under investigation, comes as the fifth Brooklyn murder in less than a week.
