Extra Police Sent to Times Square : New York City Still Feeling Race Violence Aftershocks

Outside the New Park Pizzeria with its blinking red neon sign in the shape of a pizza pie, a police car stood guard Wednesday. Other squad cars patrolled the streets of the Howard Beach neighborhood, past well-kept homes with Christmas decorations in the windows and youngsters playing basketball in driveways or touch football on the sidewalk.

As the new year begins, the aftershocks in the normally isolated Queens neighborhood and in other parts of New York City over the beating of three black men with baseball bats and a broken tree limb outside the pizza parlor a dozen days ago are not subsiding.

One of the victims, Michael Griffith, 23, was killed when he was struck by a car as he was fleeing his white attackers. Three teen-agers were arrested, but charges of murder and assault were dropped because of the refusal of one of the black victims to testify against them.

Fearful of increased racial tensions and the possibility of trouble at the traditional New Years Eve celebration in Times Square, Mayor Edward I. Koch met with black politicians and community leaders at City Hall Wednesday and ordered extra police officers assigned to keep on eye on the revelers.

Hours earlier, the black lawyer for the principal witness in the case--the victim who has refused to testify before a grand jury--sat in a Brooklyn church, angrily denouncing the mayor, the police, the prosecutors and some black officials critical of his refusal to let his client testify.

“The mayor . . . and some of our Negro leadership have all formed a new lynch mob, and they are hounding and chasing the messenger of truth,” charged Alton Maddox Jr., the lawyer for victim Cedric Sandiford. He is also representing the family of Griffith.

“The Queens district attorney’s office is making the case for the defense,” Maddox said. “There is no prosecution in the Michael Griffith case. There is a complete defense team.”

Wants Special Prosecutor

Maddox demanded that a special prosecutor replace the Queens district attorney and federal prosecutors who are investigating the incident as a violation of U.S. civil rights statutes. So far, federal and state authorities have expressed confidence in John J. Santucci, the district attorney, and the New York Police Department, and pressure continued Wednesday on Maddox to allow Sandiford to cooperate with investigators.

Without Sandiford’s testimony, prosecutors say, it will be impossible to bring major charges against the three teen-agers accused of the beatings.

Maddox has given different reasons for refusing to let his client testify. He has demanded that the motorist who struck Griffith be arrested and charged in the incident. Police say, however740324456motorist. On Wednesday, Maddox said that Sandiford is too ill to testify.

Waves of Outrage

The attack, which shocked many New Yorkers, has sent waves of outrage across the nation. It has focused intense attention on Howard Beach, an overwhelmingly white community of 18,000 residents on the shores of Jamaica Bay near Kennedy International Airport.

At the start of the new year, the mood in Howard Beach is defensive and reflective, with differing opinions of the tragedy’s meaning.

“This is not a question of race. This is a question of territory and turf,” said Joel Miele, a longtime resident and community board president as he sat in his living room. “The problem is three fellows who were obviously not part of the community were challenged by drunken kids. When the talking got back and forth, it escalated out of control. Everyone I talked to is appalled by the incident. They say we don’t have anything to be embarrassed for and we don’t have to ask forgiveness.

“We believe the law should take its course and, if these kids are responsible--and it looks as if they are--they should be punished.”

Later, Miele, an engineer, returned to the subject of the beatings of the black men, whose car had broken down.

Playing ‘Macho Man’

“Three kids, liquored up, had a girl. They wanted to play macho man. The kids are idiots, simple idiots . . . . It is not a racial problem. It really is not. If those three liquored-up kids in that car went by and saw three white kids from John Adams High School, the same incident would have happened. They (the kids) are very territorial.”

According to police, the incident began after the white teen-agers saw the blacks in the New Park Pizzeria and, returning with friends, attacked them.

“It hurts to see the media portraying this as a Howard Beach incident,” said Augustus Agate, a lawyer and neighborhood resident for 24 years. “It could have happened anywhere in the city. It just happened here. The responsible people from Howard Beach deplore the act. You cannot put a racist tag on us because of the acts of a couple of teen-agers who got drunk at a party.”

A woman, who lives in Howard Beach but refused to give her name, said: “I was terribly shocked when it happened. I thought of Germany at that point and, as a Jew, I certainly didn’t want to have that here. People who never talked to each other talked to each other. There are those who couldn’t care less. They would say to me (that) it’s not a racist thing. I say: What would you call it? The majority of the people are not like these kids.”

Turf Is Important

Still, many residents agree that turf is an important concept in Howard Beach, which they universally compare to a small town--the kind of town in which strangers are immediately noticed. Jamaica Bay, and the nearby Belt Parkway where Griffith was killed when fleeing from his attackers, slice Howard Beach into distinct neighborhoods.

There is added sensitivity to outsiders, particularly blacks, among many residents who have resettled in Howard Beach from other sections of the city. “The majority of people in the new side of Howard Beach are refugees from bombed-out parts of the city. They were fleeing from a certain type of element and don’t want to see it here,” said Agate. “There is a certain amount of pride in the area. People have put a lot of money in the homes. Where are they going to go, Jamaica Bay?”

“I came here in the ‘50s,” Miele said. “If you came from the (nearby) Hamilton Beach area, you were not truly comfortable in Howard Beach. Turf still exists today. My own children still feel uncomfortable crossing over the bridge to Hamilton Beach, unless invited. If we find someone in the community who is not a native, it is unusual. . . . If you find a stranger on the streets, he is generally lost.”

Very Little Crime

Very little crime exists in Howard Beach, although many residents remember a series of early morning holdups of homeowners by shotgun-brandishing robbers in 1982. These days, there is added sensitivity to mentions in the media that John Gotti, reputed by law enforcement officials to be the head of the Gambino crime family, lives in the neighborhood.

“The presence of John Gotti hurts us with the media,” Miele said. “A guy like Jimmy Breslin writes about Howard Beach as Gotti country. But it has no impact on us.”

Over the years, Howard Beach has undergone major changes. It was a popular summer resort at the turn of the century favored by visitors such as Lillie Langtry, the English actress, and New York’s flamboyant former Mayor Jimmy Walker. After World War I, permanent residents began to occupy the summer cottages. After World War II, there was a great wave of migration as veterans bought and built houses in the neighborhood. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, people moving away from deteriorating neighborhoods in the city flocked to Howard Beach.

Miele remembers the old days when things seemed far simpler in Howard Beach.

“In the ‘50s, you could sit on the steps of a house and, if you were facing west, you could see the Empire State Building over the marsh grass and weeds,” he recalled. “It was the country.”

Times researcher Siobhan Flynn contributed to this article.