Errol Louis
Bedford-Stuyvesant activists clean up gang graffiti
Sunday, September 2nd 2007, 11:48 PM

On Friday morning, less than two hours after a single bullet wounded Officer Brian O'Byrne outside the Breevoort Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant, hundreds of heavily armed officers were running sweeps through the development, questioning possible witnesses while a loudspeaker announced a $10,000 reward for anybody willing to give up the shooter.
It should not have taken the shooting of a cop for the big blue machine to swing into action. There are signs everywhere that violent crime is increasing in Bedford- Stuyvesant.
So far this year, murders have jumped in the precincts that cover the neighborhood: Killings are up 18% in the 79th Precinct and up 22% in the 81st compared with last year.
But there has been a curious apathy on the part of NYPD commanders when it comes to battling this wave of violence.
Exhibit A is the main walkway in the middle of the Tompkins Houses public housing. The Bloods gang has taken over the complex so completely that for months - a full year, according to some residents - ominous words were spray-painted all over the main walkway of Tompkins in big red letters: WELCOME TO DEATH ROW.
The walkway runs two blocks and has cast-iron fences on both sides. Once you're on it, there are few places to run. Criminals have found it an ideal spot for ambushes.
There could be no mistaking what the red spray paint meant. Each message was tagged with the nickname Teflon.
In one place, there's one red arrow pointing to DEATH ROW and another pointing to MEMORY LANE, festooned with half a dozen initials of the dead. There's even a no-trespass sign painted across the street on the walkway of the adjacent Sumner Houses: a red arrow, the label TOMPKINS and the warning DON'T SLIP.
For reasons best known to themselves, the Housing Authority and the NYPD left this murder manifesto undisturbed, in full view of the complex's 3,300 residents. It's hard to imagine a better way to let people know they are completely outside the concern or the protection of the city, hostages at the mercy of murderous thugs.
As we've heard ad nauseam since the early 1990s, the NYPD's vaunted "broken windows" approach to crime-fighting depends on stopping little infractions to show crooks that somebody cares about the area and will fight to protect it.
You'd think that bright red gang graffiti in foot-high letters would qualify. It seems the cops - and officials of the Housing Authority, the landlord - either passed by the DEATH ROW markings every day and ignored them, or quit patrolling the area at all.
A few exasperated Bed-Stuy leaders took matters into their own hands last week, covering the gang markings with black spray paint. The minute they began spraying, residents ran over to thank them and point out other spots to cover.
The move was the brainchild of activist Taharka Robinson, founder of the Central Brooklyn Anti-Violence Coalition, who rounded up a few retired cops - including state Sen. Eric Adams and Mark Claxton of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement - and a couple of ministers, the Revs. Leonard Hatter and Damon Cabbagestalk.
The bravest member of the group was my neighbor Frances Davis, whose three sons were murdered in the complex between 1987 and 1993.
"This was my second home. I got married in the community center," she said. "It broke my heart when I saw those words on the ground."
The words are gone - for now. It's up to everyone - the cops, the community, the Housing Authority - to keep them gone, and to join in the fight to save Bed-Stuy from the violent criminals who prey on it.