This is a simple blog that is about me venting.
New York drivers are by far the worst drivers I've ever encountered. Countless times, in various parts of the city an state, I feel my blood pressure rising to unhealthy levels.
Now, I've been to California, Montana, Delaware, Georgia, Florida, Maryland, North and South Carolina, Virginia, NJ, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Colorado, and never do experience that same type of frustration (unless there's someone with NY plates).
In other places, drivers obey the rules of the road. The left lane is the passing or speeding lane, not the lets-drives-49-in-a-50 lane! I'm sure some of you have also encountered these particular problems as well, or are the reason others of my ilk stick one finger out the driver's side window.
If you are, just learn the fundamentals of driving!
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
...traggic shooting turns into my first news clip...
Neighbors Stunned By Grisly Shooting
(from QueensPress.com April 26 issue)
BY JAMES J. PARZIALE
A 20-year-old man shot and killed his mother, her companion, and a home health care worker in Cambria Heights on Wednesday before turning the gun on himself while police were en route.
The rampage began shortly after 11:38 a.m. when Sonia Taylor, 44, called police and said she had been fighting with her son, Jimmie Dawkins, for five hours and was fearful for her life “and something terrible was going to happen.”
“My son is destroying the house,” Taylor said to a 911 dispatcher, according to published reports.Police arrived shortly after to find Taylor, her wheelchair-confined boyfriend Arnold Lawson, 47, and home health aide Syndia Brye, a mother of three, had all been slain on the first floor of the single-family home. Dawkins apparently killed himself on the second floor with the same .40-caliber handgun used against the other three, according to published reports.
Lawson’s nephew, 21-year-old Laurice Johnson, hid in a closet during the shooting after one of the bullets had grazed his leg, but he remained mum for fear he would be killed. He played dead in the closet until he heard Dawkins walk up the stairs to the second floor and then bolted out a window without shoes for 3 J’s International Restaurant about 1-1/2 blocks away.
From there, he told owner Joyce Reynolds-Wilcott to call 911.Johnson was visiting from Jamaica and had come to see his uncle, who had suffered a stroke recently and was confined to a wheelchair. He has only been in the country three weeks.This was the culmination of a bevy of domestic disputes.
Police were called twice on Monday at 3 a.m. and 3 p.m. and filed domestic incident reports. Police had been called to the house eight times since May when Taylor said her son was throwing things around the house, published reports said.Dawkins is alleged to have been unemployed and a drug abuser; a domestic abuse blog (homesweethome.wordpress.com) cited marijuana use. Dawkins was also brought to Long Island Jewish Hospital for an evaluation, but returned home. His mother contacted the Internal Affairs Bureau to try and have him arrested thereafter, but there were no signs that he was a danger to himself or others.
Taylor, 44, a nurse, “exhausted every method, and nobody did anything,” according to her sister, 40-year-old Annetta Taylor. “She went o the cops. Police wouldn’t respond,” Annetta Taylor said. “She was desperate: ‘I need help. I need to get this boy out of the house.’ He was threatening to kill her.”
After Monday’s massacre at Virginia Tech, where 32 students and faculty were killed, this incident sent a chilling ripple through the close-knit community. Residents were seen embracing and discussing what could have been the impetus for the shooting.
Rodney Capers, 30, a neighbor, said he found Dawkins disturbing when the two crossed paths in the neighborhood.“Every time he came out of the house he looked mad,” he said. “The kid was mental. He was a weirdo.”
(from QueensPress.com April 26 issue)
BY JAMES J. PARZIALE
A 20-year-old man shot and killed his mother, her companion, and a home health care worker in Cambria Heights on Wednesday before turning the gun on himself while police were en route.
The rampage began shortly after 11:38 a.m. when Sonia Taylor, 44, called police and said she had been fighting with her son, Jimmie Dawkins, for five hours and was fearful for her life “and something terrible was going to happen.”
“My son is destroying the house,” Taylor said to a 911 dispatcher, according to published reports.Police arrived shortly after to find Taylor, her wheelchair-confined boyfriend Arnold Lawson, 47, and home health aide Syndia Brye, a mother of three, had all been slain on the first floor of the single-family home. Dawkins apparently killed himself on the second floor with the same .40-caliber handgun used against the other three, according to published reports.
Lawson’s nephew, 21-year-old Laurice Johnson, hid in a closet during the shooting after one of the bullets had grazed his leg, but he remained mum for fear he would be killed. He played dead in the closet until he heard Dawkins walk up the stairs to the second floor and then bolted out a window without shoes for 3 J’s International Restaurant about 1-1/2 blocks away.
From there, he told owner Joyce Reynolds-Wilcott to call 911.Johnson was visiting from Jamaica and had come to see his uncle, who had suffered a stroke recently and was confined to a wheelchair. He has only been in the country three weeks.This was the culmination of a bevy of domestic disputes.
Police were called twice on Monday at 3 a.m. and 3 p.m. and filed domestic incident reports. Police had been called to the house eight times since May when Taylor said her son was throwing things around the house, published reports said.Dawkins is alleged to have been unemployed and a drug abuser; a domestic abuse blog (homesweethome.wordpress.com) cited marijuana use. Dawkins was also brought to Long Island Jewish Hospital for an evaluation, but returned home. His mother contacted the Internal Affairs Bureau to try and have him arrested thereafter, but there were no signs that he was a danger to himself or others.
Taylor, 44, a nurse, “exhausted every method, and nobody did anything,” according to her sister, 40-year-old Annetta Taylor. “She went o the cops. Police wouldn’t respond,” Annetta Taylor said. “She was desperate: ‘I need help. I need to get this boy out of the house.’ He was threatening to kill her.”
After Monday’s massacre at Virginia Tech, where 32 students and faculty were killed, this incident sent a chilling ripple through the close-knit community. Residents were seen embracing and discussing what could have been the impetus for the shooting.
Rodney Capers, 30, a neighbor, said he found Dawkins disturbing when the two crossed paths in the neighborhood.“Every time he came out of the house he looked mad,” he said. “The kid was mental. He was a weirdo.”
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