In a place meant for child games, gunfire tagged a teen and a young woman around 7pm Tuesday night.
Rienzi Playground opened at 715 East 225 Street on September 24, 1943. There, September 25, 2007, a shooting left the young woman injured and a 15 year old boy in critical condition.
At night the playground is open to the Bronx neighborhood, and during the day it is used by Phillip H Sheridan PS 21, school to 800 children in kindergarten through fifth grade.
When students arrived for school on Wednesday morning, they were greeted by the yellow police tape, wrapped around their square playground fence like a ribbon around a big birthday present. It also surprised Principal Joyce Coleman.
Coleman called an impromptu open-house meeting that very morning to deal with the situation. School administrators and a throng of frightened parents concluded that the need for their playground to be monitored is desperate.
Two nights later, Coleman addressed the Community District 12 Board meeting, seeking more lighting around the playground at night as well as more protection from police during the day.
Though the shooting took place after school hours, suspicious activities surround the school ground during in the afternoon as well. “Kids smoke pot across the street,” Coleman said. “We need a larger, continued police presence.”
Tim Opium, the school District 11 family advocate, has been speaking to concerned parents for the past two days since the shooting, but he said it is nothing unusual. He regularly receives complaints about dangerous goings-on at Rienzi Playground. After school hours, drug deals and fights take place in the shadows of the dark park.
Opium said that school and community advocates, tired of fear, are working toward having the playground close at night as it used to in times past. They are currently discussing the return to a lock-up at sundown, in addition to the call for constant police monitoring.
Police Precinct 47, which responded to the calls Tuesday night, is still investigating the shootings and cannot comment. According to police records, the neighborhoods within the precinct have averaged nearly 2 murders and 4 rapes per month in 2007.
