Shooting Sparks Calls For Anti-Crime Action

A gang-related shooting in Corona has led local officials and business owners to renew calls for increased police patrols and other anti-crime measures in the heavily populated neighborhood, which has experienced a 37% rise in crime this year even as other parts of the city have enjoyed a decline.
"Right now we are experiencing one of the greatest increases of gang activity, right here," said Councilman Hiram Monserrate (D-Corona) at a press conference last Wednesday. "Weve had enough."
Three days earlier, officers from the NYPD gang unit arrived on the scene of a shooting outside Club 103 near the intersection of National Street and Roosevelt Avenue. One member of the Los Vagos gang had been shot by a member of the rival gang Los Traviesos and was critically injured; upon arriving, police fatally shot another man in the crowd who was armed with a knife, and who they say reached into his waistband after being told not to move.
In total, two gunmen and six other people were arrested, police said.
Monserrate called the police shooting an "appropriate action" under the circumstances, but said, "We have someone with a bullet in their spine in our neighborhood, and weve had enough. We need help."
The councilman decried the "sense of lawlessness" that he saw pervading the community, in which he said he has been accosted three times by drug dealers trying to make a sale.
Monserrate, a former police officer, commended the officers of the 110th Precinct for the job they were doing with little manpower, but said more police were needed to patrol the area on a regular basis. He and Assemblyman-elect Jose Peralta (D-Corona) also called for the addition of more Spanish-speaking officers in the neighborhood.
Community leaders were scheduled to meet Monday with the commanders of the 110th and 115th Precincts, both of which border the area, to propose ideas for combatting crime.
Ruben Pea, head of the Corona Business Corporation, a local merchants association, said he would like to see floodlights and surveillance cameras installed in key areas, as well as 24-hour police patrols.
"Gangs have made life impossible for business owners and residents here," said Pea. "They terrorize the community. Whos going to do their Christmas shopping with gangs around?"
Assemblyman Ivan Lafayette (D-Jackson Heights) proposed reinstituting "Safe City, Safe Streets," a program that expired in 1998 by which a self-imposed commercial tax paid for extra patrols.
"Its worth it," said Lafayette. "You get the security youre entitled to."
Lafayette also lamented the dismantling of the Roosevelt Avenue Task Force, a group of police that had been dedicated to patrolling the shopping area.
Tomas Gonzalez, whose La Espiga restaurants windows were damaged in the shooting, said that gang activity in the area had affected business "tremendously."
"The only people coming in here anymore are the media," said Gonzalez.