10/05/2012 - Myclipp

The New York Times/ - Politics, Ter, 15 de Maio de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)
Prison Term for Family Friend in Harlem
Boy’s Killing
Tyshene Mungo lost her son on a warm night in
September 2008. A longstanding dispute between two
rival gangs — the Lenox Boys and 2 Mafia Family, or
2MF — escalated after one member crossed a median
on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard that separated
their territories in Harlem.Someone started firing a gun.
A bystander, Ms. Mungo’s 13-year-old son, Scotty
Scott, was killed; two gang members were wounded.
Efforts by the police to investigate the shootings went
nowhere. Police vans were pelted with rocks,
prosecutors said. Posters requesting information on
Scotty’s murder were torn down. Ms. Mungo and her
family pleaded with their community, hoping that one
of the 20 to 30 people who saw the shooting would
come forward and identify the gunman. What they did
not know was that they knew the gunman, too. Daniel
Everret was born in New York City to a drug-addicted
mother, and moved to Florida while young. Back in the
city at age 14, he relied on the good graces and
hospitality of some mothers in Harlem who took him in.
One of those women was Ms. Mungo. On Monday, Mr.
Everret was sentenced for the murder of Scotty. Ms.
Mungo was left to describe the loss of her son, and
how he had actually looked up to Mr. Everret. Monday,
Ms. Mungo said, was her Mother’s Day, as she
requested that Mr. Everret, now 20, be given at least
40 years in prison. “Today,” Ms. Mungo said in State
Supreme Court in Manhattan, “I’ll get justice for my
son.” Mr. Everret did not look at Ms. Mungo, who wore
a black T-shirt emblazoned with her son’s photograph
as she spoke at the hearing. During a brief statement,
Mr. Everret said, “Everybody on the street knows I
would never do anything to hurt Scotty or his family.”
Prosecutors said Mr. Everret retrieved a pistol —
hidden beneath a first-floor staircase in a nearby
apartment building — that was used by 2MF members,
and then returned to the area. Mr. Everret, who
prosecutors said was a member of 2MF, fired seven
shots, turning the street into a “scene of carnage,” a
prosecutor, Dafna Yoran, said. One member of 2MF
was shot in the knee. A member of the rival gang was
grazed in the head. Scotty, who was running across
the boulevard, was struck in the heart, lungs, liver and
leg. “He was shot out of his sneakers,” Ms. Yoran said.
On Scotty’s birthday, Ms. Mungo would release
balloons from the area where he was killed, and
Harlem Mothers SAVE — a group that assists parents
whose children have been killed by gun violence —
helped organize marches and rallies, said Jackie
Rowe-Adams, who helped start the group after her two
sons were shot dead. “We kept it going,” Ms.
Rowe-Adams said. In summer 2011, a young woman
who had witnessed the killing saw Mr. Everret laughing
and joking with friends at a community basketball
game, Ms. Yoran said, adding, “It upset her to see him
going on with his life.” The woman was scared, Ms.
Yoran said, but eventually she told the police that she
had seen Mr. Everret kill Scotty. Immediately after
coming forward, Ms. Yoran said, the woman left New
York. As Mr. Everret’s trial was beginning, he told
friends “to bring a couple of goons” to court, to
intimidate witnesses. When people get on the stand
they tend to switch their stories, he said, according to a
transcript of the telephone call, which he made from
Rikers Island. A jury returned with guilty verdicts in
three and a half hours. Citing Mr. Everret’s attempts to
intimidate witnesses, Judge Rena K. Uviller sentenced
Mr. Everret to 32 years to life in prison. After the
sentencing, Ms. Mungo reflected on the tragic
absurdity of the situation. “My son looked up to
Danny,” she said. “He was his family.” Russ Buettner
contributed reporting.
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