Mohammed Bah’s life ended Sept. 25 after he was shot by NYPD officers responding to a 911 call placed by his mother.  Her son had locked himself in his apartment.  She was worried that he was severely depressed and wanted him to go to a hospital.  In Guinea, residents call for an ambulance when someone needs immediate psychiatric help.

Hawa had no idea that calling 911 would bring a SWAT team.

What happened next was something Hawa could not predict.  Bah at first refused to let the police in. After some negotiations, he finally opened the door but was holding a kitchen knife. He slashed the vest of one officer and wounded another.

According to police records, the officers first fired Taser guns to try to stun Bah. Next, they fired rounds of rubber bullets.  Nothing worked. They fired Taser guns again before fatally shooting him in the torso.

A flurry of news reports and police statements dominated the news media for the next several days.  The image left of Bah was that of a crazed man.  Then the story disappeared.

Photo courtesy of the Bah family.

But not for the family.  They remain in shock, trying to understand what drove Bah to fight off police officers with a knife. The truth may never be known, but family, friends and neighbors said in interviews that the popular image of Bah in his last minutes doesn’t square with the man they know.

Through tears during a telephone interview, Bah’s sister, Oumou Bah said, “He was a very loved brother and friend.” She added, We’re traumatized. We’re praying. He doesn’t deserve this.  He has no criminal record, he has… I mean he was just a great with a big heart. Very very big heart, one of the biggest hearts I know” Oumou said.

Neighbor Ruth Varges, said the knife wielding, “crazy” man described in news media reports, most of them citing police, was not the man she knew.  She found it hard to believe that her neighbor would try to fight off police with a kitchen knife.

“He was a hardworking young man,” Varges said. “He was not a young man I ever saw roaming the streets, trying to pursue girls, smoking a cigarette, drinking alcohol, drunk anything.  I’ve only seen this young man going to and from work and coming from school.”

“He was a soft–spoken, gentle soul” she added.

John Watson, another neighbor, was also confounded about why the police would kill him.

“He was pretty quiet, to his self, very polite. He was never disrespectful to anybody.  He was always, like, ‘Hi, how you doing.  How’s everything,’” Watson said.

Bah came to America from Guinea about 10 years ago to study.  He was enrolled as a finance and accounting student at Bronx Community College.  He drove a black taxicab whenever he wasn’t in class.

Oumou said that he was looking forward to his mother visiting to celebrate his birthday.

“He was looking forward to some traditional meals, “ she said.  He even requested his favorite dish, palm butter soup, she said.

She added: “They hadn’t made final plans, but they were both excited about his 28^th birthday.  It was clear to my mom that he was not well.”

Hawa arrived in New York that Monday.  Neighbors said they saw Bah and his mother kissing and hugging.  On Tuesday, Bah refused to let his mother into his apartment, saying he wanted to be alone.  She insisted that he seek medical attention, but he wouldn’t go to the hospital.   Hawa did what she would have done in Guinea, which was to call the ambulance.

Varges accompanied Hawa to the hospital that night, and described the mother as being in a state of shock.   Hawa, she said, kept saying,  “They killed my son.  I called for help and they killed my son.”

She remains devastated, according to Oumou.  “No mother calls for help and the next thing you know they have to go and identify their son’s body,” said Oumou.  “ My brother was very close to my mother.  Very close to my mother.”

The family has now enlisted the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union to investigate the NYPD’s  handling of the situation. Diaba, a civil rights lawyer from the ACLU for the Bah family, said. “We are interested in justice, in seeking justice in this case.”

He also told Northattan that the Manhattan district attorney’s office is doing an investigation.

Supporters and relatives of the Bah family held a rally at police headquarters on Sunday, Oct. 7.  About 75 members of the New York Guinean community gathered together to protest his death and question whether or not the police followed their protocol for handling what they call “emotionally disturbed persons”.

This protocol was developed as a response to backlash from the 1984 NYPD shooting of 66-year-old Eleanor Bumpurs.  The woman was fatally shot after she used a knife to fight off police called to assist the housing authority with her eviction.

A private funeral service was held for Bah in New York shortly after his body was released to the family. His body was flown back to Guinea earlier this month where it was buried.

Through tears Oumou expressed her dismay at her “favorite brother’s” death.

“He doesn’t deserve this,” she said.   “He has no criminal record, one of the biggest hearts I know.”

Additional Reporting by Lorena O’Neil

Mohamed Bah was killed days before his 28th birthday. Photo courtesy of the Bah family.

The fatal shooting of Mohamed Bah by police left his family devastated, but his loved ones were not the only ones affected by his death. After Bah was gunned down by the NYPD on Sept. 25, his neighbors in NABE said they felt rattled.

“That was a night of nightmares,” said Mercedes in Spanish. Mercedes lives in an apartment building down the street from Bah, who lived at 113 Morningside Ave., and said she was worried that police will persecute her if she gave her last name to the press.

The day before Bah was killed, Mercedes saw him greeting his mother, who had just flown in from Guinea to visit him for his 28th birthday, which would have been the Friday after his death. “I remember thinking, look how sweet that man is treating his mom with such kindness; kissing and hugging her,” said Mercedes. “I couldn’t believe it the next night when I came outside and saw them taking him out on a stretcher.”

Mohamed Bah’s mother, Hawa Bah, called the police to his apartment building, because she said she was worried about his mental health. Her son had not shown up for work as a part-time taxi driver for the past month, and she said he had acted strange with her on the phone. When NYPD arrived on the scene they said Bah came out of his apartment and advanced upon them with a foot-long kitchen knife. The preliminary police report said Bah slashed two of the officers’ protective vests, and they attempted to Taser him and fire rubber bullets. He continued advancing, so they took out their guns and shot him.

“Now people will be afraid to call the police,” said Mercedes. She started crying and said she’s concerned about her children growing up in a neighborhood where the NYPD cannot be trusted. She said it reminded her of problems she had with authority figures in the Dominican Republic, where she is originally from. “They are here to help people? To kill people,” she said, speaking of Bah’s incident. “There are so many other things they could have done to calm him down.”

Bah’s peephole was ripped off the door when Northattan reporters visited the scene on October 1. Photo by Lorena O’Neil/Northattan

Bah’s sister Oumou Bah is also concerned with how the police dealt with Bah. “We are perplexed about what happened,” she said. “We’re trying hard to get clarifications. We are committed to seeing this through.” One of the family lawyers, Franciscus Diaba, said the Manhattan District Attorney’s office is investigating the police officers involved in the shooting. There are conflicting reports as to whether three or four officers were involved. The NYPD did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Ruth Varges lives two buildings down from Bah’s apartment building, and she took Bah’s mother to the hospital immediately after the shooting. She said that she’s spoken to many neighbors about the shooting, but that they are fearful to talk to anybody outside of the community. “The amount of fear in this community is ridiculous. I know we’re all afraid of getting shot by the police ourselves. This is why most of the people in the community don’t even want to speak.”

Neighbors in Bah’s building were not as vocal as Varges. Three different women answered the door and left their sliding chain locks on, peeking in through the crack in the door. “I didn’t see nothing, I don’t know nothing,” said a neighbor who lives two floors below Bah’s apartment.

“I’m scared,” said an elderly woman. “I don’t want to get in trouble. It’s unnerving when something like this happens so close to home.”

A woman in her 20’s, who asked to remain anonymous, said she was in the stairway coming home from work when she heard four gunshots. “They gonna do what they gonna do,” she said, when asked if this changed her opinion on police. “It’s corrupt. You can’t do anything about it.”

Although some neighbors said they would prefer to keep to themselves and sort out their own problems rather than rely on police, others said they understood how the NYPD could help keep them safe. Junior Peña said, “If I’m in trouble, I will call them.” Another neighbor down the street, Gillian, who requested her last name not be used, said she can see how difficult a job police can have. “I still will call the police. I walk and talk with them all the time,” she said. “They have to be like walking on a tightrope to do the job they do. They encounter all different sorts of dangerous situations.”

Bah’s shooting was the third time in two months that New York police had shot and killed an “emotionally disturbed” man wielding a knife. Bah’s friends and family held a rally in his honor on Oct. 7, and are still looking for answers.

“It’s very unfortunate, I hope it doesn’t happen again, which it will happen again,” said Bah’s former neighbor John Watson. He said he does not have a positive outlook on police in general and said he tells his family members to talk out their disputes rather than involve anyone else. His advice? “Just don’t get in confrontation with the cops.”

Additional reporting by Kristen Reed

Relatives and friends of Francisco Pinzon-Martinez gathered in his apartment Saturday to mourn his murder. Photo by Mustafa Hameed/Northattan.

Rows of candles flickered next to an arrangement of yellow and white flowers and two photographs in a makeshift memorial at the foot of an apartment building at 145^th Street and Broadway.

Francisco Pinzon-Martinez, a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant who relatives and neighbors said worked two jobs to send money home to his parents in Guerrero, Mexico, smiled from the photos taped to a bright blue donation box in the middle of the memorial.

Pinzon-Martinez was murdered the night of Oct. 18 in the building, in an apartment that had been converted into a storage room for a Metro PCS store next door where he worked. His body was not discovered until Friday afternoon by a co-worker.

“There’s no words to describe it. There’s just no words,” said Jose Aguirre, Pinzon-Martinez’s cousin and roommate. The two shared an apartment around the corner from the building in which he died.  “There’s no words to describe losing a brother.”

Following Mexican tradition, relatives on Oct. 20 placed the simple memorial near where Pinzon-Martinez died.  They stayed to meet with friends and well-wishers in a sort of memorial service on the street.

Aguirre, 33, said that Pinzon-Martinez came to the United States in 1997.

“He worked at the cellphone store and a laundromat nearby,” Aguirre said. “This just came out of nowhere. All I know is that the police said someone followed him and forced their way into the room. And then, you know.”

Police sources said Pinzon-Martinez died of a hard hit to the head after a struggle that Thursday night. Paramedics announced him dead on arrival at the crime scene. The storage room was on the third floor of the apartment building.

Residents of the building were distraught.

Well-wishers donated money to a donation box at Pinzon-Martinez’s memorial set up for his family in Mexico. Photo by Mustafa Hameed/Northattan.

Deborah Reed, who has lived on the fourth floor for almost 40 years, said she had known Pinzon-Martinez since he moved into the neighborhood over 10 years ago.

“He’d ask about my granddaughters, how they were doing,” she said. “We talked all the time. He was a really nice guy. He wasn’t in no gangs, didn’t do no drugs, didn’t do no drug-dealing.”

Elizabeth Urgiles, another resident, said, “When my parents told me, I started to cry.”

“I’d seen him around since I was a kid,” she said. “He was such a calm guy.”

“Beautiful people, man, they were beautiful people,” said Maria Mañon, who lived in the same building as Pinzon-Martinez and Aguirre. “All the time, working, working, working. He was a very nice boy.”

Reed said that security cameras had been placed in the building just weeks before Pinzon-Martinez’s death. “But they don’t help nothing,” she said. Pointing at the display screens in the building superintendant’s office, she said, “Look, they don’t move at all. You can’t see who comes up the stairwell on the second floor, you can’t see who comes up the stairs in the third floor.”

She said she also worried about squatters in the building. “There are all those people who are rooming in the building. They’re living in rooms but their names are not on the lease,” she said. “I don’t think it was anyone who lives here, but, you know, that makes me feel unsafe. I don’t want anything like this to happen again.”

While a few cousins stayed by the memorial, over a dozen relatives and friends gathered in the apartment Pinzon-Martinez shared with Aguirre to mourn. Aguirre had set candles next to a photo of Pinzon-Martinez on a table in the entryway. In the living room, another cousin was assembling another donation box for Pinzon-Martinez’s parents to place at the memorial on Broadway next to the cellphone store.

Aguirre said he had been on the phone with relatives and friends all day.

“Everyone here is family and close friends, and we’re all just so — I don’t know,” Aguirre said, struggling. “It really came out of nowhere.”

UPDATE: The NYPD announced two suspects Saturday night, describing both as heavyset black or Hispanic males. Photos of the suspects provided by NYPD are included below.

Police are seeking public assistance in identifying the suspects in the killing of Francisco Pinzon-Martinez. Photo provided by NYPD.

Police are seeking public assistance in identifying the suspects in the killing of Francisco Pinzon-Martinez. Photo provided by NYPD.

John Collado died Sept. 7th, 2011 after a plainclothes police officer shot him the evening before. Photo by Cherlynn Low/Northattan.

After Inwood resident John Collado was shot and killed by a plainclothes police officer last year when he intervened in what turned out to be a drug bust along Post Avenue, his family said he was just trying to help a man he knew when he stepped in the fight.

Police reports of the incident said the plainclothes detective was in the process of arresting Collado’s neighbor Rangel Batista, 23, who appeared to be involved in a drug transaction, when Collado, 43, grabbed the detective from behind and placed
him in a chokehold. The detective, after struggling with the two men, fired one round from his weapon, striking Collado in the abdomen. He died from his injury hours later.

In March this year, a grand jury declined to indict the detective who shot Collado, James Connelly. That left Collado’s family enraged and devastated.

“We believe that the DA didn’t present a case that questioned the criminally negligent homicide aspect,” said Joseph Wright, Collado’s brother-in-law, “And the grand jury, without that information, decided not to indict.”

The family is frustrated at what they believe to be the shirking of responsibility on the part of the police department.

“Someone who was trying to do the right thing was killed by a cop,” said Wright, “Their immediate reaction should have been, ‘This guy took a huge risk and we are sorry that it led to John’s death.’ But that’s not their story, that’s not how they’ve approached it.”

The family believes that if Collado had known Connelly was an officer, he would not have interfered and would not have lost his life.

Wright believes that Connelly placed himself and others at risk when he decided to operate without backup. “Once something starts, you’re not in a position where you can clearly make yourself understood. So you don’t do it without backup or without a uniform. And this is what the guy did.”

But police say Connelly was not operating alone. “He definitely had support in the field on that particular day,” said executive officer of the 34^th Precinct Capt Ernest Morales, “It was an ongoing investigation. Unfortunately, an incident took place that wasn’t foreseen.”

Collado’s family also disputes police reports that Collado had Connelly in a chokehold.

Collado’s niece Banays Taveras, who was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for refusing to leave the scene of the incident last year, said it was impossible that Collado could have done that. Taveras said that Collado had a spinal cord stimulator implanted in his back. As a result, she said, “He literally couldn’t do the things they said that he did.”

The family held a memorial service for Collado on the anniversary of his death last month at La Puerta Estrecha, and more than 50 people gathered to show their support.

The initially intimate and supportive atmosphere grew tense when two police officials showed up.

Capt. Ernest Morales gave a brief speech in Spanish, expressing his support for the family.

“As a representative of the police department, I want to be here to support their cause and to remind them that the community and the police department share the same goal, and that’s the safety and security of our community,” he said later in an interview.

But ”the community” did not take well to his presence.

Many members of the community got to their feet cheering after Collado’s niece Banayz Taveras called for answers from the police department. Photo by Cherlynn Low/Northattan

Shortly after his address, Taveras, who said she sustained permanent back injuries
from her arrest in the incident, made an impassioned speech.

“In the next year, hopefully to be given an apology, to be given a reason, when a police officer decides to step beyond that line to serve and protect, and become a criminal themselves,” she said to a standing ovation.

Collado, a former porter and bellman at the Essex House hotel, left behind five
children, including a 3-year-old son, and a grandson.

The family is now pursuing a civil lawsuit against Connelly, the NYPD and the city, and hopes to get a federal criminal investigation into Collado’s death

Their stories start cheerfully, but one by one, they seem invariably to trail to a lull, as their thoughts drift off to what seems to be a sacred, guarded past.  Every woman here has lost a son.

“I woke up in the middle of the night screaming, ‘Who’s giving our kids these guns?’” recalls Jackie Rowe-Adams, who lost two sons to gun violence. “We’ve got to do something about it.”

Founder Jackie Rowe-Adams (left) coaxes mothers Patricia Bowles-Simmonds and Lillian Ransom during a Monday evening meeting at Harlem Mothers SAVE. Photo by Nalaika Ingram.

Adams founded the parents group, Harlem Mothers SAVE (Stop Another Violent End), in 2006 as a way to combat such gun violence.  The urgency in their mission is escalating today.  After a decade of decline, gun crime in New York has reversed this year.  Shootings citywide are up 12 percent this year compared to last, according to the New York Police Department.

In Harlem, Deputy Inspector Kevin Williams of the NYPD’s 28^th Precinct told a community board meeting last month that shootings in the precinct had almost doubled compared to the same time last year; from 9 to 17.  More parents are suffering.

“I wish I could sit here and tell you that we took in zero shootings for the summer,” Williams said, noting that 11 of the shooting incidents had occurred since the end of June alone.

The 28^th Precinct and the community “have not always seen eye-to-eye,” Williams acknowledged, referring to the debate over the department’s stop and frisk policy.  “But the people in the 2-8 Precinct are doing everything they can,” he said.

Rowe-Adams is one of the many community leaders willing to work with the police, whatever their differences.  She has Inspector Williams and other police officials on speed dial as she works to pull the community together.  Numerous organizations have emerged to deal with the gun violence issue, many with vastly different approaches, but Adams’ philosophy is simple.  “If they’re real,” she says, “I work with them.”

Adams’ organization, Harlem Mothers SAVE, has grown to about 50 members since it was founded in 2006. Photo by Nalaika Ingram.

Among these groups is SNUG (“guns” backwards), a street-level organization that works directly in the community with leaders and with youth to stop violence at the source.  Another is Harlem Clergy Community Leaders Coalition.  Its leader, the Rev. Vernon Williams, has been active in the National Action Network’s “Occupy the Corners” events in which community activists staged evening gatherings on some of Harlem’s most dangerous street corners, to call attention to the threat of gun violence.

Adams also aims at affecting national policy.  In April she traveled to St. Louis, to the National Rifle Association’s annual convention, where she confronted CEO Wayne LaPierre about the terror that gun violence has brought to Harlem.  The showdown earned her a full-page spread in the New York Daily News.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, co-chair of the national coalition Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has himself led an aggressive campaign against illegal gun trafficking, sending undercover agents as far as Arizona to expose illegal gun sales out of state.  But few national politicians will touch the issue.  Adams worries that the interests of lower-income and minority communities have been marginalized by gun control opponents.

“Why is nobody pushing this legislation?  Why is Bloomberg the only one?” she asks.

While city solutions have focused on policing and gun trafficking, Adams decided to work directly with those most affected by gun violence.  She began holding monthly meetings for her mothers to give them a safe place to grieve and to cope.

“If people don’t get involved with their community, then you will never have a solution,” says Harlem mother Patricia Bowles-Simmonds.  Then Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly “are going to make the decisions that will only fit them, but not the community at large.”

Adams’ work fuses counseling and activism in an attempt to heal her wounded community, while simultaneously protecting it from future violence.

“Harlem Mothers SAVE is everything,” says Simmonds, who has attended the meetings since her son Damien’s death four years ago.  “It hurts.  And to hear the other stories, it hurts more,” she said. “But to be a part of this organization, it’s just breath-taking.”

And Rowe-Adams encourages her members to do more than just grieve.  She has helped members like Lillian Ransom to start the Kenny “Headcourterz” Dream Big Foundation, an anti-violence organization named for her slain son.

“I don’t want to have any more of these meetings.  I want us to have to close because there is no more reason to come here,” Ransom says of the group.  Her son was killed 10 years ago, and she can still recall in detail the bear hug that he left her with.  Jackie Rowe-Adams consoled her at the Monday night meeting.

“If I had lost two sons, I don’t know that I could survive,” says Ransom, in praise of Adams.  “She’s taken all of that loss and turned it into something positive.  And to me, that’s amazing.”

Rev. Waldron leads the crowd gathered in prayer. Photo by Kristen Reed/Northattan.

It’s Sunday, Sept. 9, around 11:45 p.m. Sixty  to 70 people occupy the corner of 125^th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.  Huddled in a circle, they speak passionately about the effects of gun violence on their neighborhoods.  As the Rev. Al Sharpton speaks, the crowd  affirms his message with cheers and the activist cry “No justice, no peace.”

This is “Occupy the Corner,” a four-week movement organized by Sharpton’s National Action Network in reaction to the gun violence that plagued New York City neighborhoods this summer.  Since June there have been nine shootings where children were the victims.

Sharpton said the inspiration for this movement came after 4-year-old Lloyd Morgan was fatally shot after a basketball tournament in Forest Houses in the Bronx.

“If we’d become so numb that we could bury a 4-year-old baby and not do something, then we’ve lost our sense of community,” said Sharpton.

Kemar Brooks, 14, died when a random bullet struck him in the head while he was leaving Haffen Park in the Bronx.  Ronald Wallace, 13, was killed in August when another teenager shot him in Brownsville, Brooklyn.  Ariyanna Prince, 2, of Brownsville and 3-year-old Isaiah Rivera of Bedford-Stuyvesant were both shot in the leg in July and survived.

This violence comes on the heels of the mounting debate over whether NYPD’s “Stop and Frisk” policy is effective in reducing gun violence.  But many people in at the “Occupy the Corner” movement on Sunday felt that more policing is not the solution. New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio said at the rally that the community and the police need to work together to create a solution.

“Policing is about how much you have the people being policed at one with the people in uniform, because that’s when the information flows, that’s when partnerships are formed,” he said.

“Occupy the Corner” began Aug. 17 and over four weekends, community members occupied about 15 high-crime corners in all five boroughs from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m.  Members of the various communities gathered on each corner for 16 nights.  In Northattan, five corners were occupied — 129^th Street and 7^th Avenue, 111^th Street and 5^th Avenue, 125^th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, 132^nd Street and Fifth Avenue and 1^st Avenue and 104^th Street.

An additional corner was added in Brooklyn when 13-year-old Ronald Wallace was shot and killed on the corner of Tapscott Street and Blake Avenue in Brownsville on Aug. 24.

Henry Belin, a leader of the corner occupiers in Manhattan, said a drug dealer who usually operates on a corner in Harlem asked the occupiers when they were leaving so that they could resume dealing drugs on that corner.  Belin told the dealer that they were never leaving.

“They said ‘when y’all gone leave that corner so we can go back?’ We looked at them and said we’re never leaving. If it’s three of us out there or two of us out there we’re still going to be out there no matter what the shape form or fashion of it is. We believe in the movement,” Belin said.

Almond Adams has lived in Harlem since June 2002 and is optimistic about what the movement could mean for the neighborhood.

“I hope that this is not just a four-week phase,” Almond said. “I hope that we continue this movement on to really take a stand against violence. I hope that we can make a difference.”

The Rev. Michael Waldron, head of NAN’s Ministers Alliance and pastor of First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, also said he believed that the Occupy the Corner movement will be a catalyst for change in the community. The movement, he said, is “people of consciousness and faith coming together to take a stance that we will reclaim our communities, we will embody the transformation we want to see and we will become the change we want to see.”

Sharpton said this movement is only the beginning.

“We’re gonna stand up and then we’re gonna build this into a movement against violence and we proved we can do it for the four weeks. Now we’ve gotta go into phase 2.”

By phase 2, Sharpton is referring to a plan to get funding for the community groups already working against gun violence, to host a youth conference featuring major recording artists like Sean Combs and to create a greater community presence in the schools by having community members occupy the schools.

“This is our community, these are our corners and these are our children. And we are going to save our children,” Sharpton said.

Northattan broadcast a live show on Oct. 2, 2012, covering stories from all over northern Manhattan –  and the world.

Executive Producer Elizabeth Murray

Senior Editor Jon Gerberg
Senior Producer Xiaoran Liu

Host Mustafa Hameed
Host Kristen Reed

News Room
Editor Richard Dinardo
Producer Cherlynn Low
Producer Gayatri Kaul
Reporter Emma Elbuzedi
Reporter Lorena O’Neil
Reporter Tenzin Shakya

Newscast Team
Newscaster Louisa Navarro
Spot News Reporter Natasha Verma
Newscast producer Amber Binion

Studio Team
Director Surabhi Vaya
Board Operator / Line Producer Turner Cowles
Web Manager Stuart Sia

And a very special thanks to

Betsy West
Marianne McCune
Bradley Klein

That’s according to a new government report, released Dec. 14, based on a random sample of 9,000 female respondents. The 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also found that nearly one in five women had experienced rape or attempted rape.

In New York City, a network of organizations works to assist women in these troubling situations. One of them, the Violence Intervention Program (VIP), is based in East Harlem – and its employees understand that domestic violence is a problem afflicting all levels of society.

“I’ll tell you a story,” says Cecilia Gaston, the VIP’s executive director. “A 20-year marriage to a multinational businessman, college degree, very sophisticated, domestic violence – that’s me. I’m a survivor myself, although I’ve never been poor, I’m privileged, I speak five languages, I’m a U.S. citizen. Domestic violence happens across the board.”

The Violence Intervention Program is headquartered in East Harlem. Photo by Frederick Bernas/Northattan.

Gaston is sitting in a small kitchen at VIP headquarters in El Barrio, where the organization was founded in 1984. The building is deliberately inconspicuous, and its address is kept secret so “clients can stay safe” when they visit for counseling or information sessions.

One of several small rooms is decorated colorfully and scattered with toys. Supporting children whose parents are in abusive relationships is an important part of the VIP mission: “I work with them to try and express feelings, to verbalize the trauma,” explains youth counselor Lidia Flores. “We recently started mixed groups with mothers and children, which is very helpful. Sometimes the mother cannot see from the child’s view, or they have trouble expressing feelings at home and being able to spend time together. The mother might be dealing with many different things and feeling guilty she can’t provide.”

For the most needy victims, VIP offers a way out. Secret accommodation facilities in Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens provide emergency shelter for up to 135 days, or a transitional apartment for as long as two years. “When a woman chooses shelter, it’s usually a last resort,” says Gaston. “You have to give up your job, and you cannot not tell anyone where you are – not even your family.” This is to ensure that abusive partners have no way of tracking women down.

At a time when the demand for support services is rising, the fact that so much of the organization’s work is hidden means that reaching out is a very delicate task. Word of mouth is key. “A lot of people don’t know about us – especially recent immigrants who live in their enclave with friends and family,” says Valerie Leon, the community education and outreach coordinator. Gaston adds, “They come from countries where these services do not exist, so they don’t in any way assume that help is available.”

On a wider cultural level, Leon says her promotional efforts often hit a wall of social taboos about domestic violence in Latino communities. “There’s a lot of victim-blaming: People think she must like it, she deserved it, that kind of thing,” she explains. “A lot of folks make light of it like a joke – saying men get abused, and all that. Our presence might not change someone’s relationship, but at least we’re raising awareness, which is the first part of prevention.”

VIP representatives regularly visit local hotspots where women gather, such as Head Start Centers, to deliver presentations. “One of the best tools we have is other survivors,” says Leon, who is assisted by four “promotoras,” or promoters, who themselves came through the organization’s rehabilitation program. Gaston adds: “In Latin America, the community health educator is a model that works very well. It’s not me coming with my college degree and my suit to tell somebody what to do – it’s a neighbor, and they’re very successful.”

Guadalupe Perez is one of the volunteer “promotoras.” She endured an abusive relationship for 12 years before VIP helped her get out by providing therapy, legal support and shelter. Today, the memories live on: “For a long time I carried a lot of pain and anger,” Perez recalls.

“When I started talking to my therapist, I fell down. I felt without energy, and someone had to help me go outside because I wasn’t able to walk. I remember they gave me cold water, they put me on a couch to rest, because I felt terrible. I compare myself in the past to a zombie.”

Perez says her children implored her to end the relationship, and she now takes pride in using her personal experience to help others. “If I touch a lady with my history, I know this lady will change her life if she takes therapy and decides to leave an abusive relationship and start a new life,” she says. “It could save a family – the lady and her children too. And the children will not repeat the same cycle in the future.”

The “promotoras” distribute pamphlets and specially designed nail files that advertise the VIP’s 24/7 hotline, which receives some 14,000 calls every year. “It’s something a woman can keep in her purse that doesn’t raise a lot of attention – a card or brochure is obvious, you see,” says Gaston.

The VIP website provides another pathway to the organization's variety of help services. Photo by Frederick Bernas/Northattan.

The phone number acts as a vital point of first contact: Around 1,000 women per year are then provided with further services. VIP is staffed by 38 full-time employees, assisted by part-timers and volunteers. The organization supplements federal funding with grants from the New York Women’s Foundation and other partners, and recently made $31,000 with a private fundraising event.

Gaston has worked with authorities at state and national level on the issue of domestic violence, which she says is linked closely to immigration and deportation. She says the federal Secure Communities program, first piloted by the Bush administration in 2008, is a “deadly” threat to Hispanics in New York. Under the policy, police officers submit fingerprints of all arrestees to a national database that is shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). If a violation is suspected, ICE can issue its own detention orders that lead to federal custody – and potential deportation.

“Police are acting as immigration officers,” says Gaston. “That means no one is going to call the police if it brings them into a community where there are people at risk of being picked up by immigration.” In domestic violence cases, she says this could lead to a fear of reporting perpetrators for the sake of avoiding any contact with the law.

“It’s a major undermining of community policing and the relationship between the community and the people supposed to be protecting them,” Gaston continues. She’s met with NYPD officials to discuss the issue: “We concluded that officers require an enormous amount of training,” she says. “In theory there are policies and protocols, but they’re not being followed – like something as simple as conducting a proper investigation at the site where the incident occurs and arresting the right person.”

On the other hand, domestic violence advocates have had their own policy “czar” at the White House since June 2009, when Lynn Rosenthal was appointed as special adviser on violence against women. And vice president Joe Biden was one of the original proponents of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, which Gaston cites as “a critical piece of legislation” because it provides a legal framework and a funding stream for non-governmental organizations. An updated version of VAWA was tabled for a third congressional reauthorization in November this year.

Memorial for Aaron Kobe Collins in front of Wilson Houses, East Harlem. Photo by Mayeta Clark/Northattan.

“I couldn’t see his face, but I know that’s the one who did it.”

David Collins was going through his brother’s belongings trying to find his phone. It wasn’t on him when he found him wounded in the burned-out stairwell right next to their apartment on the 16th floor of the Woodrow Wilson Houses in East Harlem on that Monday night. “If I can find it, maybe I can find the killer,” he said.

Collins was in the bathroom when he heard the front door close. Shortly afterwards he heard gunshots. He ran out of the family apartment in his robe and into the dark stairwell to investigate. Collins recounted seeing a man in a hoodie and skullcap coming down the stairs. “What happened?” he asked. “I don’t know,” the hooded man replied.

Collins went inside to put on some clothes. He asked his mother who’d gone out the front door. “Kobe,” she said referring to her younger son. Kobe, 28, had been asleep shortly before his family heard the gunshots that killed him.

Collins ran back outside and up a flight of steps. When he rounded the corner he saw his younger brother slumped on the stairs. He tried CPR, but was unable to help him.

“My brother was a good dude,” said Collins. “He just loved everybody, anybody. Everybody was in the hall trying to save him.”

Police said they were called to the Wilson Houses shortly before 9 p.m. on Dec. 12, where they found Aaron Kobe Collins shot in the torso. Although he was rushed to Metropolitan Hospital by emergency services, he was pronounced dead on arrival.

“He was a loving brother and a good father,” said his sister Lasheika Collins. “Anything I needed or my kids wanted, he’d get it for us. He always looked out for his family, looked after our mother.”

Kobe was in fact battling the courts for custody of his son, who had been removed from his mother, Kobe’s ex-girlfriend, and placed in a foster home.

Lasheika Collins said she thinks her brother knew his killer, and that more than one person may have been involved. She believes the person who set up the killing is also from the Wilson Houses complex.

Sean Collins, another of the victim’s siblings, said he believes the killer was motivated by jealousy. “He was high on something, looking for nice things,” he said, flashing his own jewelry. Collins said his brother was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Lasheika Collins also said her family was thinking of suing the Housing Authority, which is responsible for their building. The walls and lights in the stairwell where Kobe Collins was murdered were blackened by a fire up to the 20th floor over a month ago, the family said. Furthermore, Lasheika Collins said that the lack of security cameras and a broken panel on the front door of the building meant that anybody could walk in at any time without hindrance or fear of detection.

Lasheika Collins said she asked the assistant manager of Wilson Houses to fix the stairwell and front door the day after her brother was murdered, but that her request was met with ambivalence. “He took his last breath on that staircase,” she said, shaking her head.

A statement from the New York City Housing Authority said that the maintenance staff planned to repaint the walls and repair the missing glass panel in the building’s front door this week. It also said the city has set aside $43 million to install cameras and improve security at several housing developments across the city, including Wilson Houses, with work scheduled to begin in 2012.

The Collins family has lived in the apartment on the 16th floor of Wilson Houses since Kobe Collins was 4. He had a learning disability, and while he was unable to do paid work in adulthood, he was fond of basketball and drawing, filling notebooks with stark, graffiti-style sketches.

Kobe Collins’ death brings to 14 the number of murders in East Harlem this year, down from 18 last year. David Collins and his sister Lasheika said that too many of those deaths have occurred near their home. “Over here’s just bad, period,” she said.

Outside their city housing block on East 105th Street, an impromptu memorial reminds residents of the violent death of their 28-year-old neighbor.

Residents slowed as they approached the entrance to the building on December 15. A flattened cardboard box had been taped next to the door. Some wrote personal messages:

“RIP KOBE. Lost but never forgotten.”
“We will dearly miss you.”
“That drink was for my G.”
“RIP Kobe Ima keep them pullups scrappy S.I.P”

Green and white candles with “R.I.P. Kobe” in black marker burned at the foot of the impromptu memorial, next to empty bottles of malt liquor.

“Never bothered nobody,” said James Cromartie, a handyman for the building, who remembered meeting Collins when he did repairs on his family’s apartment. “He was a quiet kid. Kept to himself.”

Another resident Deshawn Stevenson, 15, recalled Collins working out on the basketball courts each day.

Detectives from the New York Police Department’s 23rd Precinct were unable to comment, other than to say the investigation was continuing.

“They hit my best friend,” said David Collins. “Make sure you put in that article we loved him.”

Some, like Washington Heights resident Miguel Antonio Vasquez, support the decision. “They should throw her in jail, or worse. The baby was practically fully formed,” he said.

But others are more reluctant to judge. “We don’t know what sort of situation she might have been in,” said fruit vendor Rafael Piñero. “The only one that can judge her and that knows why she did what she did is God.”

The fetus, about six inches long with its umbilical cord still attached, was found in a bucket wrapped in a plastic bag on the 600 block of 191st Street on November 29th. Emergency responders pronounced the unborn baby girl dead on the scene, and New York City police arrested Aribely Almonte on the rarely-used charge of “self-abortion in the first degree,” a misdemeanor under New York state law for which Almonte could serve up to a year in jail if convicted.

San Miguel Alcancel is one of more than a dozen "Botanicas" in Washington Heights that carries teas capable of inducing abortion. Photo by Russ Finkelstein/Northattan.

According to The New York Times, New York State’s Division of Criminal Justice Services said Almonte’s case is only the fifth time since 1980 that self-abortion charges have been brought in the state, where abortion is illegal after the 24th week of pregnancy, unless a doctor certifies that the mother’s life is at risk.

Though the charge is rare, some in the largely Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights say cases of self-induced abortion are probably more common than is publicly acknowledged.

New York City police have confirmed that they are trying to determine whether Almonte terminated her pregnancy by drinking an herbal tea said to induce abortion, though they couldn’t release more specific information due to the pending investigation.

Teas like the one police suspect Almonte may have used are sold over the counter at more than a dozen Dominican “botanicas” or Santeria shops in Washington Heights. One is roble, which is the Spanish word for oak. In traditional Dominican medicine a tea is made from the bark and is prescribed as a digestive aid. When taken in high enough doses, it is also capable of causing an abortion, according to Al Guervaz, a Dominican nutritionist and herbalist practicing in New York City.

“Herbal-induced abortions are not very common in New York,” said Guervaz, who said they are more common in the Dominican Republic, “where there’s a high incidence of very young women becoming pregnant.”

But women in the neighborhood do share information about which herbal medicines are capable of causing abortions, and in what doses, according to Katerine Lopez, who works at Liberty Nutrition, a natural food supplement store catering to the Dominican community in Washington Heights.

Botanicas don’t sell roble or another herb, called tua tua, as abortion agents. But they are available at $3 an ounce for other uses (tua tau is an anti-parasitic that may cause an abortion at high enough doses), so a female customer can “ask for something specific that will work, but say that you need it for another ailment,” said Lopez. “Someone I know who was thinking of having an abortion recently found information on a Mexican website that told her which herbs she would have to take,” she said.

The use of such products for clandestine, potentially dangerous home abortions might seem an anomaly in a city like New York, which has a range of resources for women seeking to have a legal abortion. But Guervaz said women who use the teas for that purpose may be unaware of other options, or unable to use them because their families would object if they knew they had gone to an abortion clinic.

“People might not know about places like Planned Parenthood if they are recent immigrants that are unfamiliar with the laws and resources available to them,” he said.

Almonte is currently staying with her father away from Washington Heights, to avoid the scrutiny of neighbors and the media. Her family has said that she will return for her Jan. 3 court appearance, when she will likely be thrust once again into the spotlight.