damien
Member
This is sort of interesting. At first glance, you might say that it is only tangentially related to guns, but I think that there are lessons to learn here, even for sheeple that don't normally think about guns at all.
1. This really goes to show that outlawing guns doesn't keep criminals for getting them in any way. These people were not safe even though a person now gets 2 1/2 years mandatory for carrying a gun in NYC.
2. Unarmed Guard = No Guard At All.
3. You just can't rely on anyone else to protect you.
There are additional lessons here, I am sure.
Mathematician killed at illegal poker game
By Michael Wilson | New York Times News Service
9:00 AM CST, November 4, 2007
NEW YORK - A mathematician and former professor was shot and killed when masked men with guns broke into an illegal, floating poker game on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan late Friday night, the police said.
The shooting occurred in an unmarked office on the seventh floor of an anonymous commercial building at 251 Fifth Avenue, at 28th Street, the police said.
There were dozens of people, mostly middle-class and well-to-do, playing poker, with a guard posted on the ground floor in the lobby, other players said yesterday. Three or four men in ski masks and dark clothes entered the room after 11 p.m., the police said.
There was a gunshot or gunshots, and the victim, Frank DeSena, 55, of Wayne, N.J., was struck in the torso, the police said. He was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly before midnight, about 40 minutes after he was shot, according to the police.
There were no arrests on Saturday. Detectives watched surveillance camera footage and questioned other poker players and people from different offices and floors of the building. One man said he overheard an officer say of the office, "It's like Atlantic City up there."
Meanwhile, oblivious poker players wearing track suits and carrying cups of coffee, including young financiers and retired accountants, arrived throughout the afternoon, only to learn of the shooting. Some of them stared in amazement at the streaks of blood still in the elevator.
"They have to keep opening and closing," said a young woman who arrived ready to play and who would not give her name. "The city closes them, and they get robbed."
"I am a devoted poker player but this is quickly changing my mind," she said. "It was friendly and everyone knows each other."
DeSena was an avid poker player, those who knew him said. A brother-in-law said he used to compete in poker tournaments; a former landlord of DeSena and his wife, Kristine, when they lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan some years ago, said of him, "He was one of these people who were interested in games of chance." But both said they were surprised to hear that the gentle, devoted husband and father of a teenage son had been involved in the shadowy, sometimes dangerous world of illegal poker games, where locations are spread by word of mouth and e-mail.
"This is so out of character. This is like if the doctor next door was murdered," said the brother-in-law, Martin Jones, 52, of Massachusetts. "He's not the type who would have put up a fight. As far as I know the poker was a hobby. I've never seen him play it, and I've known the man 20 years. He was certainly not involved in anything illegal.
"I think he was the type of guy that, once or twice a year, they'd go to Foxwoods," Jones said. At the office building in the Flatiron District where the shooting occurred, little was known of the mysterious tenant on the seventh floor, who arrived just 10 days or so ago, said the building's superintendent, Pisha Mithab.
"There are about four to five people that say they do work up there," he said. "I don't know which one is in charge." He said he asked one of them what sort of business they were conducting. "He said, 'Club,'" Mithab added. The men told him they had hired their own security guard to work when the building's regular man left at 6 p.m. every day.
The tenant said, "'We need someone to check who is going in and out,'" Mithab said.
The young woman who came to play on Saturday said that the game was a 24-hour operation with as many as 60 to 100 players in the room at once, and that some players have known each other for years. "Businessmen, lawyers, bank tellers, people you go to school with, doctors," the young woman said. The group was 90 percent men, she said, but she added, "There were even little old Jewish ladies who played there."
About 20 people had come to play poker before 2 p.m. Saturday, attracted by its being a "freeroll" day, they said, which generally involves a tournament that is free to enter but still offers a cash prize donated by the host, as a way to generate interest. None would give their names. They described the room as being large and filled with 12 poker tables and with plasma televisions; they said alcohol was forbidden.
"They're not stupid," the young woman said. "They don't want testosterone and alcohol mixing." Relatives and friends gathered at DeSena's two-story home with its tidy lawn on Ferndale Road in Wayne on Saturrday. A woman who answered the telephone at DeSena's house would not give her name, but said his wife was in shock and distraught.
"He was a wonderful person. It's senseless and upsetting," the woman said. Asked about his fondness for poker, she said, "Yes he did, and he loved the Yankees, too."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-110407-pokerdeath,0,6704458.story
1. This really goes to show that outlawing guns doesn't keep criminals for getting them in any way. These people were not safe even though a person now gets 2 1/2 years mandatory for carrying a gun in NYC.
2. Unarmed Guard = No Guard At All.
3. You just can't rely on anyone else to protect you.
There are additional lessons here, I am sure.
Mathematician killed at illegal poker game
By Michael Wilson | New York Times News Service
9:00 AM CST, November 4, 2007
NEW YORK - A mathematician and former professor was shot and killed when masked men with guns broke into an illegal, floating poker game on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan late Friday night, the police said.
The shooting occurred in an unmarked office on the seventh floor of an anonymous commercial building at 251 Fifth Avenue, at 28th Street, the police said.
There were dozens of people, mostly middle-class and well-to-do, playing poker, with a guard posted on the ground floor in the lobby, other players said yesterday. Three or four men in ski masks and dark clothes entered the room after 11 p.m., the police said.
There was a gunshot or gunshots, and the victim, Frank DeSena, 55, of Wayne, N.J., was struck in the torso, the police said. He was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly before midnight, about 40 minutes after he was shot, according to the police.
There were no arrests on Saturday. Detectives watched surveillance camera footage and questioned other poker players and people from different offices and floors of the building. One man said he overheard an officer say of the office, "It's like Atlantic City up there."
Meanwhile, oblivious poker players wearing track suits and carrying cups of coffee, including young financiers and retired accountants, arrived throughout the afternoon, only to learn of the shooting. Some of them stared in amazement at the streaks of blood still in the elevator.
"They have to keep opening and closing," said a young woman who arrived ready to play and who would not give her name. "The city closes them, and they get robbed."
"I am a devoted poker player but this is quickly changing my mind," she said. "It was friendly and everyone knows each other."
DeSena was an avid poker player, those who knew him said. A brother-in-law said he used to compete in poker tournaments; a former landlord of DeSena and his wife, Kristine, when they lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan some years ago, said of him, "He was one of these people who were interested in games of chance." But both said they were surprised to hear that the gentle, devoted husband and father of a teenage son had been involved in the shadowy, sometimes dangerous world of illegal poker games, where locations are spread by word of mouth and e-mail.
"This is so out of character. This is like if the doctor next door was murdered," said the brother-in-law, Martin Jones, 52, of Massachusetts. "He's not the type who would have put up a fight. As far as I know the poker was a hobby. I've never seen him play it, and I've known the man 20 years. He was certainly not involved in anything illegal.
"I think he was the type of guy that, once or twice a year, they'd go to Foxwoods," Jones said. At the office building in the Flatiron District where the shooting occurred, little was known of the mysterious tenant on the seventh floor, who arrived just 10 days or so ago, said the building's superintendent, Pisha Mithab.
"There are about four to five people that say they do work up there," he said. "I don't know which one is in charge." He said he asked one of them what sort of business they were conducting. "He said, 'Club,'" Mithab added. The men told him they had hired their own security guard to work when the building's regular man left at 6 p.m. every day.
The tenant said, "'We need someone to check who is going in and out,'" Mithab said.
The young woman who came to play on Saturday said that the game was a 24-hour operation with as many as 60 to 100 players in the room at once, and that some players have known each other for years. "Businessmen, lawyers, bank tellers, people you go to school with, doctors," the young woman said. The group was 90 percent men, she said, but she added, "There were even little old Jewish ladies who played there."
About 20 people had come to play poker before 2 p.m. Saturday, attracted by its being a "freeroll" day, they said, which generally involves a tournament that is free to enter but still offers a cash prize donated by the host, as a way to generate interest. None would give their names. They described the room as being large and filled with 12 poker tables and with plasma televisions; they said alcohol was forbidden.
"They're not stupid," the young woman said. "They don't want testosterone and alcohol mixing." Relatives and friends gathered at DeSena's two-story home with its tidy lawn on Ferndale Road in Wayne on Saturrday. A woman who answered the telephone at DeSena's house would not give her name, but said his wife was in shock and distraught.
"He was a wonderful person. It's senseless and upsetting," the woman said. Asked about his fondness for poker, she said, "Yes he did, and he loved the Yankees, too."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-110407-pokerdeath,0,6704458.story
