A gunman emerged from a car around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, fired bullets into two men on the corner of Blake and Whittlesey streets, then continued the job as one of the victims lay dying on the sidewalk before he drove away. Conetta Liburd (pictured) heard at least ten shots from her bedroom up the block — and thought about how her neighborhood has changed over the past year.
“It sounded like it was in my house,” Liburd, still rattled, recalled later Sunday as she cooked green beans and macaroni and cheese in her second-floor kitchen.
Abriel Canty, 24, was reported in critical condition Sunday afternoon after the shooting. The other victim, Steveland “Stevie” Ashe, 22, died.
Ashe hung out a lot on Blake Street and was well known to the many teens and young adults who spend time out on the sidewalks. A girl who identified herself as under 16 years old said she ran out after hearing the shots and held Ashe, who she said “grew up around my family.” She described Ashe as almost like an older brother, a “nice kid.” “He was dying in my arms,” she said. “I was talking to him. I was shaking him. His hands were getting hard. I said, ‘Wake up!’”
Ashe’s uncle Bruce, who lives by the corner, was also there with him as he lay dying.
Police Sunday said they were investigating the shooting. They didn’t yet have identities of suspects or a motive to report. Sgt. Pete Moller said the two victims had been arrested in the past, but not recently.
The shooting took place on a winding, transitional stretch of Blake Street near Whalley Avenue on the southern edge of the Beaver Hills neighborhood. A pair of sneakers hang from telephone wires near the corner.
The bursts of extended gunfire could be heard a half-mile away.
They were plenty loud in Liburd’s bedroom, which faces the street. She was watching Showtime because she was having trouble sleeping.
Liburd, who’s 46, has lived on the block for eight years. Until a year ago, she said, it has been relatively peaceful. Over the past year — as, she said, a group of families with teen-agers has moved onto the winding block off Whalley Avenue — she has grown accustomed to hearing gunshots at night.
Usually she runs to her porch to see what happened. But usually there are only one or a couple of shot. First she heard six shots in rapid succession Sunday. After a pause, she heard four more. The fusillade scared her into running to the back of the apartment to check on her baby daughter, then on her grown daughter.
She returned to peek through the porch door. She saw the men lying in the street. She saw Ashe’s uncle screaming over his nephew’s body. She called 911; an operator said someone else had already phoned in the shooting.
Liburd nicknamed Stevie Ashe “Cal”; he’s her niece’s cousin, she said. “There are so many boys. You know the good ones from the bad ones,” she said. “He was one of the good ones.”
“They’re all good ones,” interjected a teen-aged boy who lives upstairs. He and his mom were in the kitchen replaying the night’s events with Liburd.
“Some of them are bad,” Liburd insisted.
“We want our street back. Give us our street back,” Liburd continued. “Stop kids from other neighborhoods from coming into our neighborhood.”
She said she’d like to see more police patrols.
“We don’t need more police,” the teen-aged boy interjected.
“We don’t need police,” Liburd agreed, “but we need the kids out of the neighborhood.”
“How are we going to get the kids out of the neighborhood without police?” the boy’s mother asked.