Standing Where Neighbor Raphael Kurton Was Fatally Shot In Ditmas Park, Our Community Calls For Peace

“I want everyone to repeat his name: Raphael Kurton, Raphael Kurton, Raphael Kurton,” Councilman Jumaane Williams said as neighbors who gathered to call for an end to violence in our community Friday night wiped away tears, their shoulders shaking, at the site where  Raphael, a 27-year-old neighbor, was fatally shot last Tuesday evening.

“I want the family to understand we won’t forget him,” Williams continued.

Elected officials, community leaders, anti-violence advocates, the 70th Precinct, and other neighbors attended the Flatbush Development Corporation’s “Community Gathering for Peace” Friday evening outside the Smoke Shop & Deli at 1624 Newkirk Avenue, where police said Raphael was shot in the torso by someone with whom he’d long had a dispute. A neighbor who lived on Ocean Avenue, between Newkirk and Foster Avenues, Raphael walked along Newkirk Avenue after being shot, collapsing at 1710 Newkirk Avenue. He was rushed to Kings County Hospital, where he died last Tuesday night.

There has been no arrest as of this morning, according to police, though 70th Precinct Executive Officer Anthony Sanseverino said at last week’s Community Council meeting that police know who their suspect is and an arrest is expected to be imminent.

Friday’s gathering followed a series of crime in our area, including Raphael’s murder, Molotov cocktails being thrown into the Newkirk Medical Plaza (1414 Newkirk Avenue, by Marlborough Road) and an armed robbery at a Foster Avenue deli.

“This has been a particularly hard week for Flatbush,” FDC Executive Director Robin Redmond said. “We need to take back our streets.”

As they’ve said at similar events in our community, Borough President Eric Adams and Councilman Jumaane Williams both condemned the violence and called for a pro-active approach to tackling crime in our area, including cracking down on illegal guns and providing funding for community groups.

“This rips apart our entire community,” Adams said of the violence.

“The only way we stop this … is by providing a safe place for our children,” the borough president continued. “Bad people leave the streets when good people take control of our streets.”

Adams said a top priority need to be addressing firearms in our neighborhood.

“We have to make sure illegal guns don’t make it into the streets,” he said.”We should spend the next days organizing how we’re going to create a safe space for our children and families.”

Williams stressed the importance of funding anti-violence and other community organizations.

“The 70th Precinct is part of the solution, but we have to play our part as well – the government, the community — we have to fund programs,” said Williams, who also urged those who knew Raphael “not to respond in kind.”

“The gun violence spreads like a disease — we want to make sure it stops right here,” he said. “Whatever beef this was needs to stop here… You are destroying communities.”

Williams also lauded the FDC for organizing Friday’s event, saying that, “too often someone is shot and killed and we continue our daily lives as though nothing has happened.

“Tonight, the community is saying, ‘One of our young ones has died,'” the legislator continued. “Raphael had a whole life in front of him.”

A number of neighbors who attended Friday’s gathering, including Bashar, the owner of the Smoke Shop at 1624 Newkirk Avenue, said they’d like to see an NYPD camera placed at the intersection of Newkirk and E. 17th Street.

“We really need a police camera on the corner,” Bashar told us.

The Smoke Shop owner continued, saying that a group of rowdy, and often armed, teenagers congregates almost daily outside his store, which just recently reopened after undergoing extensive renovations.

“We reviewed our own surveillance footage from that day,” Bashar said, referring to the night that Raphael was shot. “And we saw at least four kids who had guns.”

Another neighbor told us that while she’d been hopeful that the long-problematic corner at Newkirk and E. 17th would become better after the renovated shop opened, it has “gotten worse.”

“It’s scary,” said the neighbor, who lives with her husband and young children near the deli. “My husband heard one of the kids say, ‘I’m going to kill you,’ the day Raphael was shot.

“The afternoon is the biggest problem there,” she continued. “They’re always there — a group of 19-, 20-year-olds. They need a camera at the corner — maybe that will stop them.”