How many more kids have to die, NYCHA? Get the cameras!
Mayor rages after kid slashings Cops hunt homeless suspect
CALLING IT “unacceptable bureaucracy,” Mayor de Blasio ripped NYCHA on Tuesday for dragging its feet on installing security cameras in the housing project where two kids were attacked by a knifewielding monster.
The blast from City Hall came as police were searching for a homeless man they suspect is the Brooklyn butcher who on Sunday murdered a 6-year-old with a steak knife on and badly wounded his 7-year-old playmate in an elevator, and killed a teen on Friday.
De Blasio said the housing agency has been sitting on $27 million earmarked for the security gear and expressed outrage that officials didn’t “move more quickly” to install them in the Boulevard Houses in East New York.
“Ithink it was a bad strategic decision by NYCHA to not simply put those cameras in place immediately,” he said. “I under- stand cameras are not a panacea but they’re part of the process of fighting crime andone of the great tools wehave.”
“So all those cameras must be in place by the end of 2014, throughout the system. The buck stops with me.”
The mayor’s edict took NYCHA officials by surprise. At a Council hearing Tuesday, NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye first promised to get the $27 million in cameras installed by spring 2015 — then abruptly amended her written testimony to promise the job will be finished by year’s end.
“It’s clearly two victims too many,” Olatoye told the public housing committee. “The notion that cameras are a luxury is false. This is something that’s an incredibly high priority for us.”
The Daily News reported Monday that $500,000 was set aside nearly a year ago to install the cameras at the Boulevard Houses but NYCHA had failed to get the job done by the time of the attack on the children.
The city Office of Management and Budget approved the Boule- vard job a day after the fatal attack, along with 48 others NYCHA promises to get done by year’s end.
Last year, NYCHA began installing cameras at80 developments after the Daily News revealed the agency had been sitting on some $45 million in funding for years that was supposed to pay for cameras at high-crime projects.
Meanwhile, the grieving family of little Prince (P.J.) Joshua Avitto collected his body for a Friday funeral and the loved ones of Mikayla Capers were praying for her recovery. Mikayla was stabbed 16 times and somehow survived, her great-grandmother, Regenia Trevathan, said outside New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia.
“She is not able to talk or anything. She’s still critical,” Trevathan, 62, said. “She’ll respond to commands, to the staff when they turn her and
stuff like that.”
“I’ve seen the wounds,” added the retired city Correction Department officer. “I can’t fathom to see something like that on her. How could somebody do something like thatto an innocent kid?”
P.J. and Mikayla were playing outside Sunday when they were told ices were waiting forthem back in the building, police said.
The kids were already in the elevator whenthe killer barged inside at 5:50p.m.
Believed to be in his 20s, the lumbering attacker stabbed both children in the torso somewhere between the first and fourth floors after telling them to “shut up,” police sources said.
When the elevator returned to the ground floor, the butcher fled, stumbling at one point, a witness told police.
Mikayla managed to crawl out of the lift, trailing blood as she went, police said. P.J. was found inside the blood-soaked compartment.
Both children were rushed to Brookdale University Hospital, where P.J. died.
On Tuesday, P.J.’s heartbroken dad Nicholas Avitto told police that the sketchy descriptionof the suspect appeared to match that of a hulking homeless man who has been spotted at the project, source said.
Detectives immediately began canvassing area shelters and subway stops searching for the suspect.
The man is also suspected in Friday’s fatal stabbing of 18-year-old Tanaya Grant four blocks away from the Boulevard Houses.
With the neighborhood on edge, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries called for FBI help in the search for the killer.
“There is a psychopath who is on the loose, who could strike again at any moment,” said the Brooklyn Democrat.
P.J.’s godfather said the neighborhood is terri terrified — even ev with ith all the extra cops aro around — and they want the monster arre rested “right now.”
“Soon is not fast enough,” said 53-year-old Henry Alston. “Right now! Right now! He needs to be taken off the street.”
Earlier, P.J.’s cousin, Chicago B Bulls power forward Taj Gibson, poste ed his condolences and a photo of the slain sl boy on Instagram.
“They killed my lil super man,” Gibson wrote. w “#rippj only two more weeks until y your 7 birthday. Tears forever… this can’t be life #foreversuperman #babycuzz.”
Gibson, 28, who was born in Brooklyn, was drafted by the Bulls in 2009.
P.J.’s funeral and wake will be held starting at 8:30 a.m. Friday at St. Paul’s Community Baptist Church on Hendrix St. in Brooklyn.
The NYPD is offering a $14,000 reward for help in arresting the killer and have asked people to call (800) 577-TIPS.