increasingly less valuable.

co-op, shitty.

have i mentioned lately that i’m glad to not be living in the bronx anymore? my old neighborhood has gone crazy. even the janitors in co-op city are wilding out:

One Dead and Two Wounded in Bronx Shooting*
By SEWELL CHAN and AL BAKER
Published: August 30, 2007

A man who was fired from his job as a janitor in Co-op City in the Bronx and lost a lawsuit to get his job back returned to the housing complex this morning with a .38-caliber revolver and shot three former colleagues, one of them fatally, according to the police.

The police said the gunman, Paulino Valenzuela, 50, then boarded a public bus, went to the Bronx Criminal Court building and turned himself in to the authorities.

Mr. Valenzuela, of 120 Casals Place in the Bronx, was fired from the RiverBay Corporation, the management company that runs Co-op City, in 2005. Last year, he filed a federal lawsuit to get his job back. The case was dismissed on Friday.

Before he was fired, Mr. Valenzuela had been suspended three times since 2000 for threatening co-workers.

According to the Police Department, Mr. Valenzuela fatally shot a RiverBay supervisor, Audley Bent, 49, of Rosedale, Queens, in the basement of 2440 Hunter Avenue, at 7:50 a.m.

Mr. Valenzuela then walked outside the building, and on the street, wounded two more men, Sander Palaj and Phil Zudrima, both also employees of RiverBay. Mr. Palaj was wounded in the neck and Mr. Zudrima, a supervisor, in the arm. The two wounded men were taken to Jacobi Hospital, the police said. (link)

lets think about this fiasco for a second. this man was so desperate to keep his job – as a JANITOR – that he was down to shoot people after he lost his case. this raises some questions in my mind:

1. are there really no other janitor jobs available in the bronx?
2. just what do you have to do to get suspended from a job mopping floors?
3. do you really need to be a people person if you’re a janitor?
4. why the hell did he take the city bus to turn himself in to the cops? why not salvage some dignity and grab a taxi?  even if you don’t have the money, what’s the worst they can do if you don’t pay the fare?
5. are they still taking people to jacobi hospital? why not just dump the wounded bodies right into long island sound?

i joke, but in all seriousness it does hurt me to hear that life has become increasingly less valuable in a place that i used to love. to the kids (and adults, apparently) still holding down sections 1-5… be safe.

and for the love of brown people please try a little harder to live together in peace.

*thanks to sra. valentin for hooking up the link.