When the S54 bus makes its stop on Broadway aspiring actors and playwrights are not among the descending patrons. Stock brokers and downtown businessmen are not seen on this route either. There are no bright lights, no big businesses, no trees or parks. There are only housing projects, shuttered windows and run-down storefronts. Drug dealers occupy vacant alleys, waiting for the day’s clientele. This is the Broadway of Staten Island, considered by some to be the forgotten borough.
Up the block from Broadway, with the Manhattan skyline in clear view, stand the West New Brighton housing projects on Castleton Avenue—a stark contrast to its cross river companion. Asian immigrants sell bootleg CDs and DVDs in front of the Haircut Hut, the neighborhood barber shop and general hangout, just blocks from the Staten Island Ferry. The streets are near desolate, and the malodorous stench of urine overpowers the smell of salt water from the Upper New York Bay.
“This is where that kid [Rudy] Fleming is from,” says Elliott Vasquez, a 21-year-old resident of the southerly conjoined neighborhood of Emerson Hill. “I mean, it ain’t no surprise he did what he did. Look at this place, he took this with him.”
Rudy Fleming, the 19-year-old charged in the Jan. 27 murder of 28-year-old actress Nicole duFresne, lived in the West Brighton Houses until he was arrested for aiming a gun at a truancy officer when he was 16. At the time of the murder Fleming was living with an uncle in the Baruch Houses, another public housing project on the Lower East Side just blocks away from the scene of the crime. According to NYPD statistics, West New Brighton and the surrounding 120th Precinct are responsible for more than double the amount of criminal activity than the 7th Precinct that encompasses the Baruch Houses. More than 10,000 citizens of the 120th Precinct are on some sort of home relief program, with more than 15 percent of all persons living below the city poverty level, according to the 2000 census.
“Although some of these kids may think they have no way out,” Landsberg says, “the housing authorities have some ability to provide help, the question is, ‘What more can be done?’”
Gerald Landsberg, a professor at NYU’s School of Social Work, said there are misconceptions about people who reside in housing projects. “Just because someone grows up in the projects doesn’t mean he or she will become a gangster,” he says. “Projects are sometimes violent places but don’t always have to be. A lot of people grow up in projects because there is no other place for them to live.”
The Children’s Aid Society, Staten Island’s largest community center for underserved youths, is located in Fleming’s former neighborhood. However, there is no record of Fleming ever attending any of the center’s various after school activities or mentoring sessions. Landsberg says there are “hardly enough services for those who have been through the criminal justice system” and said more support is needed for teenagers.
Fleming’s record indicates that he was in need of the kind of support services Landsberg describes. In addition to two arrests, one which caused him to be dismissed from Port Richmond High School, he was ticketed for disorderly conduct in 2001, and was labeled a Bloods gang member by neighbors and in police records. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Fleming is among the 60 percent of those released from prison rearrested within three years.
Fleming’s behavior after each of his two arrests shows signs of emotional distress as well as respect issues, according to Landsberg. “Over 70 percent of juveniles put through the criminal justice system show signs of EDP and/or drug and alcohol problems,” he says.
Although no records indicate Fleming ever sought or was referred for psychiatric help, records of his first arrest indicate signs of emotional distress. His only statement after brandishing a loaded gun at officers in 2001 was, “You should have shot me. You should have shot me. I want you to kill me. I want to die,” according to the police report.
This comment led to the mark of EDP (emotionally disturbed person) on his first arrest record. When he met his parole commissioner in April 2004, Fleming reportedly said that he had “a little accident in [my] pants” when he drew a gun on the truancy officers in 2001. Landsberg says Fleming showed further signs of EDP after his second arrest when he was apparently weeping in the backseat of a patrol car.
Says Vasquez: “You see people getting off the [S]54 and you can just tell they ain’t in good situations, you know what I mean? The kid Rudy is just a product of his environment and there ain’t no way anybody here [West New Brighton] can be surprised by his [alleged] actions.” Vasquez pauses as a police car passes by. “Pigs,” he hisses, staring blankly at the car.
Vasquez says his disrespect for the NYPD, the 120th Precinct in particular, is widely shared. “If I’m minding my business and they’re gonna give me s--- because they work in a place where they have to deal with horrible s--- all day, hell yeah I’m not gonna respect them,” he says.
Michael Arvanites, legislative coordinator to Councilman Michael McMahon (D-North Shore), says “the 120 is in worse shape than any other station in this city.” Currently, the 120th Precinct employs just under 300 full time officers, and have lost 41 officers since 1995, due in large part to a combination of retirements and transfers according to the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.
Mahesh Sasikunar, 22, who lives in the neighboring Park Hill Houses, believes lack of respect for authority is a dangerous complement to living in West New Brighton. He says everyone has something to prove and must “keep [his] guard up at all times.” He said crimes are committed “day or night, witness or no witness.”
Sasikunar says Fleming’s alleged actions may have been because of respect issues. “If she’s [duFresne] all like, ‘What’re you going to do, shoot me?’ the kid Rudy must’ve been like, ‘Are you serious? Yeah I’m gonna shoot you,’” he says.
While the rest of West New Brighton debates the cause of the murder, Fleming waits to be arraigned—in jail, without bail. “Although some of these kids may think they have no way out,” Landsberg says, “the housing authorities have some ability to provide help, the question is, ‘What more can be done?’”