BET THEY DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING If there was one common thread in last week's criminal doings, it was the element of surprise. Not that anyone really expects to be shot or mugged, but this recent mayhem seems particularly unexpected.
Take the case of Harold Mason, a beloved 53-year-old neighborhood handyman in Bushwick. Mason had recently worked on a neighbor's car, so when that neighbor called him at 2:30 Sunday morning and asked to meet him by the deli a block away, Mason put his shoes on and went downstairs. While Mason stood in line outside the deli with about a dozen other people, a man with a rifle showed up and began firing. It's just not the sort of thing you'd expect at 3 a.m. while waiting to get a cup of coffee. The crowd scattered, but Mason caught a single, fatal bullet in the back.
Whether he was targeted for his car-repair job or was just an unlucky bystander remains unclear.
At around 9 Sunday night, a 34-year-old Bronx woman made the same mistake so many others have made recently. The unnamed woman lived in a hotel complex designated for homeless people with HIV. She had either locked herself out of her room or was on her way to visit a friend in another part of the building (stories differ). In either case, she found herself on the roof, and decided the best way to reach the apartment was to climb down the outside of the building, then let herself in through the window.
She got at least partway down—then, in a flash, she got all the way down, landing in an alley behind the hotel.
Ronald Kordis, 56, had his reasons for telling the man holding the gun on him to just go ahead and shoot. The two were on 16th St. near 5th Ave. around noon on Tuesday. The gunman had just followed Kordis out of a local bank.
When Kordis broke the standoff by making a grab for the gun, the gunman complied with his wishes and shot him in the leg. But wouldn't you know it—the damn bullet ricocheted off of some loose change in Kordis' pocket, leaving him essentially unharmed. The gunman fled, while Kordis waited for the paramedics.
At the hospital, it was discovered he was carrying 76 bags of heroin and several hundred bucks in cash. He's now under arrest.
Eighteen-year-old Staten Island resident Rosario Zodiaco was arrested on Tuesday for a scuffle the previous Friday. Thing is, it was a scuffle with a 14-year-old (they can be so damned annoying). Zodiaco, who sounds like an evil magician, not only punched the kid in the face—he tried to make him disappear by locking him in the trunk of a car.
The kid, apparently a bit of a magician himself, managed to open the trunk from the inside about half an hour later. He then promptly fingered Zodiaco.
And the Post reports that Michael Houck, 19, was arrested at 3:30 Thursday morning for scrawling graffiti on a building in Queens. Not a big deal, until it was learned that Houck started working for the sanitation department two weeks ago. o
