Chess Table Murder: One Dead, One Wounded in Latest Spasm of Violence in the East Village

Dried blood could be seen on a chess table next to a coffee cup inside Tompkins Sq. Park where two people were shot on the morning of July 12.

One victim, a 74 year-old man was administered CPR on the scene but perished and was pronounced dead shortly after he was raced to Bellevue Hospital. A second victim, a 44 year old male, staggered out of the park and into a deli on Avenue A near the corner of E. 8th St. He too was rushed to Bellevue Hospital and was listed in stable condition.

Said one poster on the blog EV Grieve, “I live on the corerm of 7th and A. I heard the gunshots and immediately looked out my window. I saw the 44 year old victim running across A with blood all over his shirt.

”A sad day in the EV,” he continued. “I hope they find the shooter.”

Another poster who went by Sarah on the site said, “Jesus Christ. This is awful. Sympathies to the victims and their families.”

Police told Straus News that no arrests have been made.

Ron Luvov, a retired guidance counselor who lives in Stuyvesant Town told Our Town he was going to head to the park to do some bird watching and grab lunch when he got the alert about the shooting on the Citizen’s app.

”There’s definitely more crime happening lately,” he said. “It’s back to the 80s.”

Another young woman the scene said, “I used to live around here and come back all the time.” While she said crime seems to have spiked recently, she said long time denizens of the neighborhood “tell me it was a lot worse years ago.”

The chess tables have been a source of problems in the park in recent years. Police said a person of interest was seen in the park wearing gloves, a mask and a hoodie shortly before the shooting at 9:45 a.m. He fled East on E. 7th St. after the shooting. Police were said to be searching for crime scene footage of the shooting.

At least five shots rang out, according to one posting on the blog EV Grieve.

Luvov said there seems to be a growing spate of violent crime in the area lately, although he noted that a recent fatal stabbing a few blocks north two weeks earlier resulted in a clean up drive by law enforcement. “The finally cleaned up E. 14th St,” Luvov said.

Eric Adams and local city council leaders had called for a crackdown on vagrants who were congregating along the south side of East. 14th between Ave. A and First Ave. after the triple stabbing

The Immaculate Conception Catholic Church on E. 14th St. runs a weekly flea market in the court yard between the church and the now shuttered elementary school, but the licensed vendors inside also seemed to attract a raft of unlicensed vendors to the sidewalk outside in recent years. Locals tabbed the unlicensed vendors–who set up blankets on block and sold everything from canned food, housewares and electronics–the “thieves market.”

In the stabbing death on June 30, police arrested a homeless man, Alejandro Piedra, 30, and charged him with murdering 38 -year-old Clemson Coxfield, who had attempted to come the aid of a woman who was also stabbed by a deranged Piedra. According to one report in the New York Times, Piedra had some stolen items that he was attempting to exchange for drugs on the block. But when he was turned down, he went on a violent rampage.

Inside Tompkins Sq. Park, there were was several shootings in March only five days apart. In one incident, two innocent bystanders were wounded in a March 16th shooting. In another shooting incident five days later, no one was injured. Police arrested Waldemar Alverio, 33, on attempted murder, assault, and reckless endangerment charges for the two shootings that occurred on March 16 and March 21.

No arrests had been made in the July 12 shooting at presstime but police said the investigation is continuing.