June 7, 2020 Your Neighborhood — Your News®
Month xx–xx, 2019
LOCAL
CLASSIFIEDS
PAGE 7
Music’s
stopped
Brooklyn venues
search for help
amid shutdowns
BY BEN VERDE
Two months into the state’s
stay-at-home order, Brooklyn’s
clubs and music venues are relying
on philanthropic fundraising
and bank loans to stay alive
as they face an uncertain future,
where they will likely be the last
businesses to reopen as part of
the New York’s phased reopening
plan
“We have another year of hardship,”
said Olivier Conan, the
owner of Barbès in Park Slope,
which has drawn music lovers
to its bustling backroom for 18
years.
Conan said he doesn’t expect
concerts to be up and running in
any capacity until Spring 2021 at
the earliest — which is a projection
shared by live music behemoth
Live Nation.
“That year of hardship is going
to kill my business,” he said.
To soften the blow, many ven-
SEEING
CLEAR
Brooklynite makes
transparent masks to help
the hard-of-hearing lip-read
Cops gun down shooting suspect in Crown Heights
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
Police offi cers shot a shooting
suspect in Crown Heights dead
on Tuesday night after he refused
repeated instructions to drop his
weapon when cops found him,
NYPD Chief of Department Terence
Monahan reported.
Ten offi cers who confronted
the 34-year-old suspect along Bergen
Street near Rochester Avenue
in Crown Heights all opened fi re
on him after pleading with him
to drop his weapon for more than
a minute, which he ultimately refused
to do, Monahan said.
The shooting was not related
to the ongoing police brutality
protests, said Monahan.
Law enforcement sources said
the unnamed perpetrator shot a
man just before 9:26 pm along Bergen
Street. Offi cers responded to
the location after the gunshot set
off the NYPD’s ShotSpotter detection
system.
Upon arriving at the location,
they found the unidentifi ed
victim wounded at the corner of
Rochester Avenue and Bergen
Street. Paramedics brought him
to a local hospital in stable condition.
The motive for the shooting
remains unclear.
Monahan said the offi cers gave
orders for more than a minute to
drop the gun. The situation was
recorded by the cops’ bodycams
as well as by nearby witnesses,
who posted videos of the standoff
to social media.
The NYPD Force Investigation
Squad, which handles police
shootings, is investigating.
Continued on page 2
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
A Greenpoint woman has
started making transparent face
masks to help the hard of hearing
who rely on reading lips obscured
by more traditional face
coverings amid the COVID-19
pandemic.
“Somebody who can’t hear
well, a big part of life is reading
lips,” said Stephanie Samperi-
González.
The creative mask-maker was
inspired by her brother-in-law,
who wears a hearing aid and has
used lip-reading his whole life —
until Brooklynites started donning
face coverings to stem the
spread of the virus, and he began
having diffi culty knowing what
people were saying.
“He gets through life perfectly,
and all of a sudden after
his whole life this new struggle
happens because he can’t read
lips,” Samperi-González said.
The mother-of-three and her
husband have been producing
personal protective equipment
Continued on page 2
Stephanie Samperi-González started making the clear masks inspired by one
of her hearing-impaired family members. Stephanie Samperi-González
Police investigate the shooting scene
at the Kingsborough Houses in Crown
Heights. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
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