{"id":99,"date":"2011-12-15T02:12:28","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T02:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/?page_id=99"},"modified":"2018-03-02T22:54:17","modified_gmt":"2018-03-03T03:54:17","slug":"capeman-murders-3","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/newyorkcitygangs.com\/?page_id=99","title":{"rendered":"Capeman & Umbrella Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before you get to the article\u2026<\/p>\n

On February 23, 2018, my book on the Mau Maus and Sand Street Angels, who were two Brooklyn youth gangs from the 1950s, has been completed.\u00a0 It took 15 years of research and writing to complete Brooklyn Rumble: Mau Maus, Sand Street Angels, and the End of an Era.\u00a0 <\/em>This book is roughly 6\u2033x9\u2033 and has 370 pages and includes a look at the characters in the Mau Maus and the details of a gang killing that happened in February 1959 in front of the iconic Brooklyn Paramount Theater (now Long Island University).\u00a0 If you want to buy a copy, click here and this link will take you to an online ordering page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Manhattan, New York City, August 31, 1959<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Front Page Newspaper “Capeman”<\/p><\/div>\n

On August 29, 1959, in a light drizzle, twelve or thirteen Puerto Rican gang members of the Vampires, Crowns and Heart Kings piled into a taxi on their way to a small park in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, a predominantly “white” neighbourhood, to avenge the beating of one of their friends. Armed with an eight inch dagger, a three-foot garrison belt and a sharpened umbrella, the boys were ready for a fight.<\/p>\n

When arriving at the park, the boys, one of them dressed in a cape, blocked off the exits, trapping some teenagers inside. After some discussion with the kids in the park, someone punched one of the “American” kids. A fight broke out, and before long the cape-clad attacker, Salvador Agron, had stabbed Robert Young and Anthony Krzesinski. Agron also stabbed Ewald Reimer, who then broke free only to be tripped and stomped. Finally somebody said, “He has had enough.” Reimer survived but Young and Krzesinski died shortly after the stabbings.<\/p>\n

With these two stabbings being the third and fourth gang killings in a week, it threw New York City into an uproar. The press excoriated Agron who did not help matters any when he was quoted as saying, “I don’t care if I burn; my mother can watch.”\u00a0 Read more about the notoriety of the case here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Seven youths in total were charged with the slayings. The Assistant District Attorney, Emanuel Growman, took the statements of the boys. Click here for the summary of the seven boys’ statements.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>The Park<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This is the park where the murders took place. The following is a superb description of the park taken from Eric C. Schneider’s work Vampires, Dragons and Egyptian Kings.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

“The playground, basically a concrete slab between 45th and 46th Streets, was surrounded by five-story tenements and hidden from the traffic on Manhattan’s 9th and 10th Avenues. The unlit park was not the sort of place one stumbled upon by accident, and local youths went there to smoke marijuana, drink beer, and have sex. Two sixteen year-old prostitutes brought their customers there to be rolled by local toughs, and it was rumored that male homosexuals cruising Time Square were also lured there and beaten. On a corner nearby stood the White House Bar, headquarters of the last remnants of the West Side’s Irish organized crime groups.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What happened to the Capeman?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Salvador Agron was sentenced to death, the youngest ever in the history of New York to sit on Death Row, while Louis Hernandez received 7-15 years, see his sentencing minutes below:<\/p>\n