Nabe mourns for member of its ‘family’
SAHEED VASSELL died as he lived: on the familiar streets of Crown Heights.
The bipolar Brooklynite became a neighborhood regular over the years, welcomed in local businesses where he worked a few random hours or did some dance steps to earn a buck.
He was a friend, a father and a sometimes drinking buddy, a quirky and constant presence.
At a vigil for him Thursday night, friends released white and red balloons in Vassell’s memory.
“He was part of us, part of our family,” said barber Alex Willie as friends and neighbors mourned his death. “He was a good dude. He wasn’t a threat to society.”
None of the locals or the Vassell family could foresee his brutal death: killed on a Crown Heights corner after one final, bizarre walk down the local sidewalks.
“I didn’t sleep,” said his sister Vernita. “I still can’t believe it.”
Neighbors recalled Vassell, 34, carrying a rosary or an orange Bible as he meandered the sidewalks.
“He would come to my store almost everyday,” said Abdul Mannam 60, who runs a local dollar store. “He would dance and talk to himself all the time. Everyone knew him here.”
Mannam would typically slip him a $1 bill before Vassell departed.
There was another side to Vassell: Family members said he struggled for years with bipolar disorder but refused to take his prescribed medication.
It was unclear if he ever visited any city agencies for help, said Mayor de Blasio.
Vassell was a bit of a drinker, too, hanging out sometimes with residents of a building on Montgomery St.
The local cops would cite the men for drinking on the streets, said one member of the group.
The local police, aware of Vassell’s mental health woes, generally left the Jamaican immigrant to his own devices — and the local hospitals, according to the pal.
“He would tell you himself, ‘Cops don’t come for me, the ambulance comes for me,’ because he knows he’s mental,” said the neighborhood friend. “And when (the police) see him they would just say ‘Oh.’”
The superintendent of Vassell’s building recalled him as a manchild who used to play all alone on the roof with water pistols.
Vassell, the father of a 15-yearold son, would collect items from the streets below and bring them upstairs for safe keeping, recalled building super Bianca Martinez.
“He’s been doing it a long time,” said Martinez, 44. “We don’t bother him because he don’t bother us.”
Barber shop owner Kevin Davis recalled seeing Vassell just minutes before his death, shouting over as his pal walked across the street.
Moments later, he saw the arriving cops and heard the fatal gunshots.
“He was never threatening,” said Davis, 40, who met Vassell about one year ago. “He was a
good-natured guy.”