Paul Bass Photo
10:11 p.m. SWAT team marches across Whalley to hideout house.
(Updated) With two fleeing eyewitnesses to a murder holed up in a house on Orchard Street, and cops stationed outside with guns at the ready, SWAT negotiator Officer Dave Hartman grabbed a bullhorn and turned it on.
“Come out through the front door,” he ordered. “Do it now.”
Twenty minutes later, two young men walked out of the house and surrendered to police.
Police arrested one of the men, who’s 18, and charged him with murder. “Right now the motive is questionable, although police do not believe it’s a robbery,” said Sgt. Al Vazquez.
The surrender of the two men was the culmination of a tense standoff following a homicide at the Whalley Avenue Burger King across from Stop and Shop Monday night.
It happened at 7:21 p.m. Burger King manager Gerald Leon (pictured) found a man, Donald Bradley, shot behind his restaurant, in the drive-through lane. Police believe Bradley had a disagreement there with several young men who were in a car with him; the argument continued outside the car, where one of the men shot Bradley in the chest. The men fled the scene.
Two of the fleeing men — teens, actually — surrendered at 10:08 p.m. Immediately afterward, police SWAT entered the house the teens had been hiding in, on Orchard Street between Whalley Avenue and Dickerman Street.
Manager Leon had just inventoried his 365th hamburger when he heard up to five shots ring out in the back of the restaurant. Leon rushed to the front of the restaurant in time to see three men running toward the street.
Leon then walked out the back door to find Bradley lying in his own blood by the drive-through. Bradley was on the ground in front of a Toyota sedan (pictured) near the speaker where people place their orders. The car was stopped right before the ordering speaker. Above it a clearance sign advised: “watch your head!”
“Blood was coming out of his mouth,” said Leon, who’s a 38-year-old Haiti native. “He was breathing.”
But not for long.
Leon whipped out his black iPhone 4S and called 911.
A handful of customers were seated inside the restaurant. Five employees were inside, too, and all stayed calm, according to Leon.
No other customers were at the drive-through. Bradley had not yet placed his order.
Police arrived and followed a report that the gunman or his accomplices had fled around the building to a residence behind the Subway restaurant at Orchard and Whalley. Police taped off the sidewalk from Burger King down Whalley to Orchard and called in the SWAT team.
Meanwhile, Bradley was transported by ambulance to the the Hospital of St. Raphael, where he was pronounced dead. He had been shot multiple times, including in the chest, according to David Hartman.
The SWAT team arrived and set up a command post at the AutoZone across Whalley from the Burger King. Relatives of the suspect gathered on the sidewalk and in front of Jimmy’s Urban Clothing & Footwear.
Chief Esserman and Sgt. Al Vazquez at the scene.
Chief Dean Esserman spoke with the father and the uncle of one of the suspects inside the house. He spoke with the other suspect’s grandmother. They expressed concern about their relatives’ safety; Chief Esserman gave them his word that the police were looking for them to come out and speak with them — and that the police would not harm the young men. He asked for the relatives’ help. The relatives gave police information about the teens.
Members of the police department’s new shooting task force arrayed themselves around the Subway, guns drawn. Police learned that a quadripalegic man was in his apartment on the first floor. They decided not to storm the building or use tear gas.
Using the bullhorn, Hartman ordered the suspects to come out. He told them to put their hands up and come outside one at a time through the front door. He called to the suspects by name and told them police had spoken with their family members.
“We want to make sure that you’re safe and that we’re safe,” he said at 9:43 p.m.
“We need to talk to you right now. Come out through the front door. And do it now,” he said at another point.
“We’re not going anywhere until we talk to you.”
Asst. Chiefs Archie Generoso and Luiz Casanova monitor developments.
On the fringes of the scene, meanwhile, police were keeping upset and boisterous relatives and onlooker away from what could have been a dangerous situation.
At 10:08 p.m., two suspects walked out with their hands up. Police arrested them. Three minutes later, the SWAT team marched across the street and entered the house to look for the third suspect and a gun.
It was unclear whether either of the two arrested men was the gunman. They went to police headquarters to be interviewed by detectives.
Meanwhile, the SWAT team searched the building to make sure no one else was inside. The plan was to obtain a search warrant and then have the Bureau of Identification comb the building for evidence, including a gun.
The Only Place Hiring
George Gonzalez (pictured), 34, got off the bus at 9:30 p.m., a half hour early for his 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift at Burger King. He was dismayed to find he couldn’t get past the yellow crime-scene tape to clock in.
“I need my hours!” he called to manager Leon, who was behind the line.
“I can’t do anything until the police give the all-clear to let people in,” Leon explained.
Gonzalez said he has worked at the Burger King for two years as a cook, cashier, and porter. “I do everything.”
Just in the last year, he said, there has been a shooting in the Burger King parking lot and a shoot-out two parking lots over. Another night, a drunken man threw a brick through the window when the manager wouldn’t serve him. Asked why he still works there, Gonzalez responded “It’s the only place that’s hiring right now.”
Sg. Richard Miller said it looked like Gonzalez was not going to get his hours. Police planned to keep the Burger King as a crime scene for the night and send employees home.
Manager Leon later said he would pay Gonazalez for a few hours’ work. Not for the whole night, though.
Why do we allow so many drive throughs, parking lots, and gas stations (including another one planned by Stop and Shop) in a pedestrian-oriented residential zone with such a high density of children? They are magnets for crime and blight.
Turn them into gardens and make people who want a burger park and walk to the store, like they do at every single restaurant in our city's other neighborhoods.
People wonder why there's so much crime and pollution. The answer is right in front of their face.