14 THE COURIER SUN • JUNE 6, 2013 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.couriersun.com PROJECT PRAYER Reverend Phil Craig created “Project Prayer” to bring people from all backgrounds together to pray for an end to the violence. THE COURIER/Photo by Maggie Hayes REVEREND TO HOST PRAYER WALKS AGAINST VIOLENCE Ridgewood pair found dead after suspected assault BY MAGGIE HAYES mhayes@queenscourier.com Two bodies both with head trauma were found in a Ridgewood apartment building, authorities said. Police responded to a 9-1-1 call about a possible assault inside the home of Franco Montoya, 21, and Beatrice Morris, 28, at 9:30 p.m. on Monday, June 3. EMS responded to the scene and pronounced Montoya and Morris dead at the scene. The two, who were believed to be a couple, were known on their Flushing Avenue block as “friendly and normal,” neighbors said. They were not people who were looking for trouble, said Ania, who owns a catering business next door and did not want to give her last name. Ania, 47, was told the pair was beaten to death. “It’s shocking,” she said. “Somebody who lives next door, somebody you see almost every day. It’s awful.” Carmen Rodriguez, 68, lives on a residential block around the corner from the scene. The neighbor said she was “shocked” that an incident could have happened right next door after police came to her house to search her backyard. “You don’t see much crime here, just people coming back and forth from work,” she said, adding that nothing like this has ever happened before in her 30 years living in the area. She described the neighborhood as “very safe.” The Medical Examiner will determine the cause of death for both victims and the investigation is ongoing, authorities said. THE COURIER/Photo by Maggie Hayes The bodies of a young couple with trauma to their heads were found inside their Ridgewood apartment building. TWENTY-SIX SHOOTINGS IN 72 HOURS NYPD DEPLOYS ADDITIONAL OFFICERS FOLLOWING WEEKEND GUN VIOLENCE BY CRISTABELLE TUMOLA ctumola@queenscourier.com A hot weekend in the city was also a violent one. Twenty-six people were shot — seven of them fatally — in the 72 hours from Friday, May 31 through Sunday, June 2, police said. Three of the surviving victims were under age 16. Gun violence occurred in all of the city’s boroughs except for Staten Island, according to police and published reports. At least fi ve of the shootings were in Queens. A 21-year-old man was struck in the leg at 12:10 a.m. on Sunday at the Ravenswood Houses in Astoria, reports said. The same day, a 35-year-old man came to Jamaica Hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg. There was also a fatal shooting in Jamaica on Friday. According to police, a 33-year-old man was discovered inside his car on 159th Street in Jamaica around 7 a.m. on Friday with multiple gunshot wounds. In the wake of the weekend shootings, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has ordered additional police resources to prevent more violence. Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne said those resources include the assignment of additional uniformed offi cers to public housing developments citywide and the deployment of Skywatch camera-equipped observation towers. Further, Warrants Division personnel will focus on areas that experienced multiple shootings over the violent weekend to arrest individuals wanted on outstanding warrants. Murder and shooting rates, however, are still lower than they were at the same time last year, the NYPD said. Homicides have dropped 24 percent, shooting incidents are down 27 percent and the number of individuals shot has declined by 29 percent when compared to a year ago. “We all know that when the temperatures get up there, people’s temper gets shorter and the crime rate does seem to go up,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters on June 3. “One shooting is one too many, but the bottom line is, including this weekend, we have the lowest number of shootings that we’ve had in a decade.” BY MAGGIE HAYES mhayes@queenscourier.com A Queens clergy leader is not simply saying prayers to stop the borough’s violence. He is traveling and delivering them himself. Reverend Phil Craig of the Greater Springfi eld Community Church needed a way to bring his community together and “get everybody on the same page,” he said. For his “Project Prayer,” Craig intends to spend the summer walking throughout the borough starting in the southeast. He said he hopes the project can be a forum for people of all backgrounds to come together and state their hopes and intentions in a safe environment. “If we can pray together, then we can surely work together,” said Craig, who is president of the Jamaica National Action Network. He said he met with the network’s executive board to discuss his idea the same day 14-year-old D’aja Robinson was aboard a city bus and shot by a bullet allegedly intended for somebody else. Craig added that the incident further confi rmed the need to stop the perpetual string of violence throughout his community. “I don’t care what faith base you come from, I’m talking about let’s all come together,” Craig said. “There’s corruption and conspiracy, it’s all a plague over this community.” Craig said life is very different nowadays. He noted that in the past, churches used to be the cornerstone of the community, children were raised differently and people had a mutual respect for one another. Now, he sees people being territorial and violence erupting as a result. “If we can get people in housing complexes, the clergy, the community leaders and the police department to all come together, this community can be a very powerful one,” Craig said. He hopes to reach the borough’s youth since they are “the ones that are angry, the ones that are committing these crimes.” “If we can plant these seeds in these children, we can weed out this generation that seems to be lost,” he said. “If we keep planting good seeds, we will reap what we harvest.” Project Prayer is set to start July 13 at the Rochdale Village Houses and will continue to visit different housing projects in the region, eventually spreading north to Long Island City and Flushing. “I want to do something that I believe will be a comfort to people’s hearts,” Craig said. “This right here is something everyone can take part in. No matter where you go for worship — or if you don’t go anywhere — we have to be able to live together, and that’s what it’s all about.”
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