
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 26, 1990                   TAG: 9007260104
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

JUST BEING THERE, IN N.Y., CAN BE FATAL

On the street, they're known as mushrooms - innocent bystanders who get stomped underfoot. Ordinarily they're just another crime statistic, but this week's instant victims demanded attention: a year-old baby and a 9-year-old girl.

"It's not something recent. It's just getting more attention. It's becoming more common, and it will grow," said Thomas Reppetto, head of the watchdog Citizens' Crime Commission.

Yaritimi Fruto, whose first birthday was Friday, was shot in the head by a gunman who killed her father Tuesday in Brooklyn. She was in critical condition Wednesday at Brookdale Medical Hospital Center.

On Sunday, a 9-year-old girl sleeping in her parents' car after a trip to an amusement park was mortally wounded by a bullet in the head. Veronica Corrales died Tuesday at Brookdale, shortly before Yaritimi arrived.

"They're in the way, underfoot, so let's squash 'em down. That's the way they feel about innocent bystanders in New York City in 1990," said Reppetto, a former police officer.

More and more bystanders are becoming victims around the city, statistics show. Reppetto cited a study by his group showing the number quadrupled between 1978 and 1988.

A University of Maryland professor of criminology, Lawrence Sherman, did a study that showed a jump in the slayings of bystanders every year from 1985 through 1988. The number in the first year was five; in the last, it was 12.

This year, there have been eight in seven months, police said. That number doesn't include random victims like 18-year-old Hassoun Tatum, a one-time child actor who was gunned down early Tuesday while driving his car.

Police have separate categories for people shot by stray bullets and those who were targeted, for whatever reason or lack of reason. A rooftop gunman with no apparent motive pumped bullets at Tatum's car.

"New York is so crazy now. People have no values. Why would anyone want to stand on a roof, fire a gun at an innocent kid in a car? It's all over. The city is finished," said Berkley Tatum, whose son was in the 1985 Broadway show "The Tap Dance Kid."

Veronica's uncle, Willy Cosme, blamed it on the neighborhood, East New York. "Growing up around here, other little kids often learn the bad side of life," he said. The Brooklyn police precinct where Veronica's family lives is the deadliest in the city, with 97 murders in 1989.

There are no numbers for wounded bystanders, such as 11-year-old Ayana Anderson, who was grazed by a stray bullet while sleeping in her Harlem apartment. Or Shawn Smith, 16, and Jisena Lynch, 15, wounded by a gunman as they stood outside a school.

by CNB