Rory Kane and Nate Kristan were playing “Manhunt” — a game they made up — when the cops poured onto their street and arrested a shooting suspect.
It was not long after 6 p.m. Wednesday when the action roared onto their kid-filled dead-end block of middle-class Richmond Avenue in the flats of Westville.
At least a half-dozen cops in cars and others on foot were rushing through the neighborhood in pursuit of three men, two of whom were wanted in connection with a March 11 shooting at 573 Dixwell Ave. The young men are between 18 and 23; one is nicknamed “Jerk.”
The cops had reported recently in the Register that two of the men were wanted. An anonymous caller Wednesday alerted the police that the men were driving around in a gold-colored car with tinted windows.
The bulletin went over the police radio. Officer Luis Rivera spotted the car in the Hill and began a chase. He momentarily lost the car; Officer Victor Fuentes spotted it again on lower Edgewood Avenue. The chase continued up through Edgewood Way in upper Westville, according to Sgt. Marc Calafiore. At that point the three men bolted from the car and ran in different directions through the streets down the hill, Calafiore said. Cops spread out through neighborhood streets looking for them.
When the chase came to two-block Richmond, teen-aged pals Kristan and Kane were busy playing a game they’d invented. It goes by two names: One, “Man Bear Pig Hunt Orc,” the other, simply “manhunt.”
“It’s hunting, but you don’t really kill people,” they explained. “The hunters are looking for prey.” Click on the play arrow at right to watch their description.
They and other kids (and parents) on the block saw one of the three suspects emerge from one of the yards. Then they saw the cops catch him and take him away. Some of the smaller kids were frightened during the episode; they went inside their house and locked themselves in a room.
p(clear). 
As some of the cops placed the suspect in a squad car and prepared to drive him away, others interviewed members of the crowd gathered on the street, from pint-sized kids to older adults, about what they’d seen. At that point, two of the three suspects had been found.
p(clear).
Click on the play arrow at right to watch some of the neighbors describe the snippets of action they observed.
p(clear). The action moved off Richmond a few blocks east, where the cops found the third suspect about a half-hour later. That suspect — the driver — was not believed to have taken part in the March 11 shooting; he was arrested on interfering and trespassing charges. The other two suspects were arrested on assault and weapons charges. The cops recovered two guns and are looking for a third.
p(clear). “This was a great job by patrol,” Sgt. Calafiore said. “We’re relieved that these guys are off the street. They were extremely dangerous felons.”
p(clear). 
Meanwhile, as the manhunt ended, Rory Kane returned to a more traditional street game — shooting hoops.