At the time of his death, Bimal Chanda was moving out of his apartment on West 190th Street and Grand Avenue, where he’d lived for decades. Concerned about increasing crime in the area, friends say, Chanda, his wife, and their teenage daughter were about to move to a condo in Parkchester.

On the morning of Oct. 29, he walked to the store to buy more packing tape. On his way home, he was attacked and viciously beaten in the stairwell of his building. He died five days later.

Chanda’s killing was one of several violent incidents that took place over the last few weeks in the northwest Bronx, with three attacks occurring in close proximity to one another in Fordham. Just a day before the fatal beating, another man was stabbed to death a mere block away, and last week, a four-year-old boy was in critical condition after he was shot on the street just a quarter of a mile south. (About a mile away, on East 198th Street and Bainbridge Avenue, 21-year-old Edwin Nunez was shot to death in the early morning hours of Nov. 5.)

The spike in violence has drawn attention to the area recently, but residents here say crime is nothing new.

“I saw a lady get her purse snatched in the middle of the day, while I was walking to lunch,” said Shaniece Utsey, who works nearby. “You always hear things like that.”

Mohammed Ali, a member of local Community Board 7 who was a close friend of Chanda’s, also lives in the neighborhood and says blatant drug deals, prostitution and muggings are frighteningly commonplace. His own wife, he says, was robbed at gunpoint in their home a few years ago.

“This area is getting worse and worse,” he said. “My wife is very afraid, my neighbors, everybody is afraid.”

The string of recent homicides nearly doubles the murder rate in the local 52nd Precinct, with the number of deaths this year jumping from four to seven during the first week of November alone, at a time when violent crimes had otherwise appeared to be decreasing.

“General crime stats are going down, supposedly, but the on-the-ground reality is that people are concerned,” said Father Joseph Girone, pastor at nearby St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church. “You read about these stray bullets going through innocent people every week, practically.”

Last Tuesday, 4-year-old Cincer Balthazar was shot during a botched robbery attempt on Grand Avenue near Evelyn Place. Cincer’s father, Bobby Balthazar was walking the boy back to a homeless shelter where Cincer’s mother lives, when a trio of young would-be muggers tried to steal the father’s designer jacket. In the commotion, shots were fired and a bullet struck Cincer. Balthazar was able to wrestle the gun away from his attackers and chased after them. He ended up shooting Jose Marte, 17, in the neck.

The boy survived and is in critical but stable condition at Columbia University Medical Center, according to 52nd Precinct Commander Joseph Dowling. Jose is listed in stable condition and has not been charged. Another 17-year-old, Mauricio Acosta, was arrested and charged with attempted robbery, assault and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.

The week before that shooting, 35-year-old Gabriel Sherwood was found lying in the lobby of 2460 Grand Ave. with multiple stab wounds to his torso, and was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital shortly after. Police later arrested Johanna Rivera, 26, of 2463 Grand Ave., in connection with the killing. (Another suspect was arrested on Nov. 11.)

Police released surveillance video footage of two men they believe were involved in Chanda’s attack, but no arrests have been made. Police initially said the beating came during an especially violent robbery, but after the attack, Chanda still had more than $70 in cash, all of his credit cards and his cell phone.

On the day of Chanda’s wake, Ali organized a press conference outside of the Parkchester funeral home where the service was being held. He wanted to publicly demand answers to his friend’s senseless death, he said, and also draw attention to the vulnerability of the immigrant community to crime.

“My community is a very hardworking community, a very peaceful community,” he said. “In our country these things happen because it’s a poor country. This is the best country in the world, but we come here and it’s still happening. Where can we go?”

Chanda was born in Calcutta, India, though he’d lived in the Bronx for the last several decades. Ali, a native of Bangladesh, says many immigrants in the community are reluctant to call the police to report crimes, either for fear of retribution or because they don’t think it will do any good.

On a recent weekday afternoon, the streetlamps along West 190th Street, where Chanda lived, were covered in police posters asking residents to call if they knew anything about the crime.

“Help us help you,” one poster read.

Nearby, a woman was walking her dog. She declined to give her name, but said she lived on Grand Avenue, next door to the building where the man was stabbed to death in the lobby two weeks ago.

“There’s always crime in this area, and there’s never police around here,” she said, nodding at an NYPD squad car that was parked on the corner, its engine idling. “They’re only here now because this happened.”
Ed. Note: For more details on these crimes and continuing coverage, visit our website, www.norwoodnews.org.