Barnes Avenue was the scene of a murder that left one young man dead, and an ongoing police investigation.
Frankie Faison, 17, was shot twice in the torso at close range in front 2677 Barnes Avenue, near the Allerton Library, on Tuesday, April 26 at 4:50 p.m.
According to reports from neighbors, two friends were by his side as he slouched over in the street as the 49th and the Emergency Medical Technicians responded to radio calls of shots fired.
Faison was a familiar face in the community, said Barnes Avenue homeowner Vincent Ashley, who ran out of his house on the block between Arnow and Allerton avenues, when the shots rang out.
“I have seen him and his friends around the neighborhood,” Ashley said. “When I heard the shots, he was lying up against a car, and one of his friends was calling for the police and crying.”
Many kids use the block as a hang-out, Ashley said, and that at times there are about 50 kids congregating in front of the library.
This was not the first time that tragedy struck a young person on the street.
“A kid was hit by a car in almost the exact same location, when he darted out in front of traffic on a bike and was run down, about two years ago,” Ashley said. “Now another kid is dead, this time by gunfire. It is sad.”
The community has gotten safer in recent years, and the murder is sad and disconcerting, said Edison Marquez, a superintendent of a building on the block.
“We have a lot of kids in the building who play around out on the street, so there is concern,” Marquez said. “The community on the whole is getting much better here in terms of crime, and although incidents like this still happen, there is less crime and violence than there was three or four years ago.”
There have not been any arrests in the case yet, however, Deputy Inspector Kevin Nicholson said at the 49th Precinct Community Council meeting, just hours after the murder, that an investigation by the squad had already commenced.
