Women sue in sex abuse from 1965

The shooting of a former college football player outside a Queens deli opened old bullet wounds for his family.

As 20-year-old Malachi Capers remained in a medically induced coma Thursday, his great-uncle recounted how the young athlete’s father was shot to death 10 years ago by a gun-toting stranger in a still-unsolved homicide.

“It’s hard for my family because we’re reliving it again,” said Andre Capers. “This is almost like a flashback for our family.”

According to Andre Capers, the decade-old murder of Omar Capers happened as the victim was walking through Brownsville, Brooklyn, when the gunman shot him six times.

“It was devastating,” recalled Andre Capers. “It devastated us all. Because we still have no closure. It was really tough. But [Malachi] pushed through it. He was a fighter then, and still is.”

The younger Capers, a former defensive end at SUNY Buffalo State College, was shot after bumping into another man as the two squeezed past one another in a cramped aisle inside the 136th Ave. Deli in Laurelton this past Monday.

Accused gunman Jeffrey Thurston dropped his phone, and the incident escalated quickly.

A deli security video showed Thurston throwing a right hand at Capers’ head, with Malachi chasing the man outside and tackling him. Thurston finally shot Capers in the stomach from point-blank range and fled the scene.

Police nabbed the suspected shooter two days later after Thurston was spotted walking down a Queens street. He was charged Thursday with attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon, and faces up to 25 years in prison on the charges, said Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz.

“This kind of gun violence is unacceptable,” said Katz. “A young man is now fighting for his life because of a petty incident that spiraled out of control with a gun.”

The DA said Thurston was also charged in two earlier incidents: An April 4 assault where he struck his girlfriend and stole her cell phone, and a July 8 attempted assault where he fired a gunshot at an occupied vehicle.

But Andre Capers said he felt sorry for the suspect who shot his great-nephew.

“I really do,” said Capers. “My whole family was angry at first, but then we realized maybe he has some mental health issues. We feel he needs help. We’re gonna overcome evil with good. We’ll forgive him … at the end of the day, we hope he gets his life together. We hope he gets the help he needs.”

In Thurston’s most recent violent confrontation, Capers was inside the deli grabbing snacks while on a break from his job at United Parcel Service, according to Andre Capers.

“That was his routine every day,” said the victim’s great-uncle.

Malachi was slated for a third surgery Friday as doctors at Jamaica Hospital worked to repair his bulletdamaged kidneys. If the surgery is unsuccessful, the wounded young man could need a lifetime of dialysis or a kidney transplant, said Andre Capers.

The 52-year-old Andre, though shaken by the similarities to the decade-old shooting, expressed optimism about Malachi’s recovery.

“Malachi was very smart from the inception,” said Andre Capers. “He wants to be a psychologist. He’s a straight-A student, a hardworking young man. He loves his mother. He’s very respectful and amenable, so this news was very horrific.”

Up to 55 years have passed — but three women who say they were sexually abused and assaulted by a teacher at the Brooklyn school now known as Poly Prep remain hurt enough to sue.

Robert “Bob” Rusch, 77, assaulted the women when they were middle school students, says a lawsuit filed Thursday in Bronx Supreme Court. The alleged abuse started in 1965 and ended in 1973 when Busch was fired, says the suit against Rusch and Poly Prep.

“Our clients have lived with the horrific effects of this abuse every day since it happened,” said a statement by one of their lawyers, Jordan Merson.

Two of the three women accuse Rusch of raping them on school camping trips. All three say he often subjected them to humiliating sexual abuse in front of their classmates.

Rusch taught seventh-grade students photography and was an adviser for extracurricular activities at what was then known as Woodward Park School in Fort Greene, which is now part of what is formally called Poly Prep Country Day School.

The three women allege Rusch’s abuse began early in the school year in the photography dark room and continued in the main classroom in front of other students, “creating a hostile, abusive and oppressive environment,” court docs say.

“When male students attempted to intervene, [Rusch] would verbally berate those students, and even resorted to violence on one occasion by pushing a male student against a wall,” the suit states.

Two of the victims said Rusch raped them when they were just 12 years old.

On school trips, Rusch forced the girls to sleep in his tent with him and his thenwife, Kathy Rusch, the suit says. Rusch molested and sometimes raped them, the women said.

Rusch could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

The suit alleges administrators at Woodward Prep were aware of Rusch’s transgressions, which eventually led to his dismissal in 1973.