The Other McCain

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A Shootout in Carnarsie

Posted on | February 8, 2025 | Comments Off on A Shootout in Carnarsie

The intersection of Flatlands Avenue and East 80th Street is probably not the worst part of Brooklyn, but it’s also not the best part of Brooklyn.

Far be it from me to pretend to have any expert knowledge of Brooklyn neighborhoods. All I know on the subject, I learned via Google searches, which tells me that this vicinity is part of what’s known as Carnasie:

Canarsie was initially a fishing community, but became a popular summer resort in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the late 1930s and early 1940, the resorts had been destroyed, and Canarsie was developed as a largely Italian American and Jewish suburb. In the 1970s, racial tensions developed around an argument over the zoning of the area’s schools, and in the aftermath, Canarsie became a mainly black neighborhood with a high West Indian population in the late 1990s.

The intersection of Flatlands Avenue and East 80th Street is in ZIP Code 11236, where the population is 82% black and 4% white. You may wonder why I’m sharing this information, or how it might be relevant to any current political discussion, but I became interested in this because of a video I watched on the Police Activity channel on YouTube:

Suspect Points Gun at NYPD Sergeant Before Being Shot and Arrested
On Friday, January 10, 2025, at approximately 9:43 p.m., Sergeant Salzman, Police Officer Okafor, Police Officer Wilson, Police Officer Zaheer, and additional officers assigned to the 69th Precinct, were transporting a prisoner to the 69th Precinct following an unrelated arrest. While at the intersection of East 80th Street and Flatlands Avenue, the officers heard a gunshot in the vicinity and observed, 50-year-old Moonra Durham fleeing northbound on East 80th Street. Sergeant Salzman and Police Officer Zaheer pursued Durham on foot while Police Officer Wilson and Police Officer Okafor pursued him in their vehicle. While the officers pursued him, they shouted commands for Durham to stop. Once in front of 754 East 80th Street, Durham positioned himself behind a tree and pointed a firearm at Police Officer Zaheer.
Durham then turned to his left and pointed the firearm at Sergeant Salzman. As a result, Sergeant Salzman discharged three shots, Police Officer Okafor discharged four shots, Police Officer Wilson discharged two shots, and Police Officer Zaheer discharged four shots, from their service firearms at Durham. Durham was struck by the gunfire and taken into custody without further incident. Durham was transported from the scene via ambulance to Brookdale University Medical Center where he was treated for his injuries. For his actions, Durham was arrested and charged with Attempted Murder in the First Degree (police officer), Attempted Murder in the Second Degree, Criminal Use of a Firearm in the First and Second Degree, Attempted Aggravated Assault Upon a Police Officer, Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree, and related charges.

 

We do not know why the initial gunshot was fired — robbery? assault? just another Friday night in Canarsie? — but it so happened that at least four cops were within earshot of this incident, and considering how it played out, the suspect is lucky he didn’t get shot dead. Where I come from, you point a gun at a cop, let alone four cops, and you’re likely to die in the proverbial “hail of police gunfire.” What kind of place is this, where gunfire goes off randomly on a Friday night and the perp thinks it’s a smart idea to point his gun at cops? That’s how my curiosity about Canarsie got started; the description included a street address — 754 East 80th Street — and I was able to do a Google “street view,” which showed a pleasant-looking tree-lined street, with brick apartments or rowhouses.

Just looking at it, you wouldn’t think of East 80th Street as “ghetto,” and in terms of its physical appearance, this Canarsie neighborhood probably hasn’t changed much since the days when, as Wikipedia says, it was “a largely Italian American and Jewish suburb.” Alas, the Jews and Italians cleared out decades ago because of a school-zone dispute, and the more recent “gentrification” that turned neighborhoods like Park Slope into hot spots for yuppies never got as far east as 80th Street. OK, so who is this suspect walking around with a pistol? “Moonra Durham” is a sufficiently unique name that I figured it was worth a Google search.

Moonra Durham

Moonra Durham is a registered sex offender who was convicted of first degree sexual abuse in 2013. Details of his full criminal history were not available, but the fact that a registered sex offender armed with a pistol was just strolling through Canarsie on a Friday night — well, that would be scary, if you happened to be in Canarsie, but my advice is to stay the hell away from there. The New York Times published an interactive map of the 2024 presidential election, which allows you to search results down to the precinct level, and in this particular part of Canarsie, the results were Kamala Harris 93%, Donald Trump 6%. This neighborhood is part of New York’s 8th Congressional District, represented in Congress by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who won reelection last year with 75% of the vote.

Readers will recall that on Thursday, I took note of Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who had proclaimed on CNN that “the people that commit 80% of the most violent crimes in this country are white supremacists.” And I pointed out that Crockett represents the 30th District of Texas:

“With a Cook Partisan Voting Index rating of D+27, it is the most Democratic district in Texas.” If your employer relocated you to Dallas, and you were looking to purchase a residence in the area, I’d advise you to stay as far away from the 30th District as possible. Nothing good ever happens inside a D+27 congressional district.

The Eighth District of New York is rated D+26. Just sayin’ . . .



 

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Category: Crime, New York

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