Just three weeks ago, Deputy Police Inspector Elias  Nikas, commander of the 40th Precinct in Mott Haven, showed up at the precinct’s monthly Community Council meeting with his shoes polished and a big smile on his face.

“I’ll meet with anybody anytime, let’s have a great year!” Nikas said.”

So community leaders reacted with surprise at the news this week that he is stepping down from his command to take another post in the NYPD. And they said he will be missed.

“He had his officers everywhere, he understood the concerns, he knew the importance of leadership,” said Alex Diaz, the Community Council  president. “He was walking on the beat, he was really out there. You could see him and he was at every public meeting, where he answered all questions he can.”

Nikas, who has declined comment on his departure, leaves as the precinct is embroiled in a wide-ranging investigation into ticket-fixing by officers and union representatives in the Bronx. The NYPD has said he is leaving for personal reasons, and will be assigned to the department’s domestic violence bureau.

Community leaders said they saw no link with the ticket-fixing scandal.

“It actually happened many years ago, a long time before he came here,” said Gloria Cruz, the precinct council’s secretary, who worked closely with Nikas.

She said he was always available to discuss problems with community leaders, his own staff and citizens alike.

“He made them accountable for what they do and always tried to find a solution,” she said. “I am proud to have been one of his partners.”

The long-time chairman of Community Board 1, George Rodriguez, echoed Cruz’s sentiments, saying of Nikas, “In all my years going back to my time in Community Board 2 with Fort Apache, he was one of the best.”

“There are ups and downs in our neighborhood,” said Diaz. “We had spikes in gang activity, but we are not the only ones.

“I don’t have any details but I can’t think of him involved in this scandal,” said City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, whose district includes part of Mott Haven.

John DeSio, spokesman for Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., said Diaz did not want to comment on the ticket-fixing scandal. City Councilwoman Carmen del Arroyo did not respond to a request for comment.

Mark-Viverito said that although she has only been directly in touch with him a couple of times, she remembers that he knew the neighborhood very well and knew how to avoid violence.

“I found him very attentive,” she said.

Nikas, who is going to work in the NYPD’s domestic violence unit, has been replaced by Deputy Inspector Christopher Mc Cormack, who had been commanding officer of the 20th Precinct in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.

“It’s always hard when there is a transition,” said Mark-Viverito. “It’s what happens everywhere, but here we have a lot of challenges, so the change might be a little disruptive.”

Co-founder and Principal Gina Sardi holds up a typical Montessori school teaching tool.

Montessori School uses methods long available to wealthy

Local children will have access to a method of teaching often used by expensive private schools, but never by a New York City public school when a new charter school opens in Mott Haven this fall.

Called the New York City Montessori School, its educational philosophy calls for small class sizes, student-led learning and individualized work plans for each student.

Learning in Montessori schools emphasizes the five senses. For example, students who are learning to read are given sandpaper letters as learning aids. They are encouraged not only to see letters, but also to touch and hear them.

A specific site has not yet been chosen, but the school will be in Bronx Community School District 7, which spans Mott Haven and Melrose, said Principal and Co-Founder Gina Sardi.

There are two dozen Montessori-affiliated schools in New York, but this would be the first free one. At the nearby Morningside Montessori School in Harlem, a private school, tuition for a five-day pre-kindergarten program begins at more than $11,000 per year. Tuition at some of New York City’s top elementary schools can climb to more than $30,000 per year.

The idea of a public school offering teaching methods that are usually only available at private schools excited parents who learned about the school at a recent gathering. But some advocates worry that charter schools like the New York City Montessori steal resources from regular public schools.

On a recent Friday morning, Sardi and Director of Instruction Robin Urquart greeted prospective parents at the Brightside Academy on East 150^th Street.

Natasha Rozon said she wanted to find a school that was clean, non-violent and had good teachers.

“I really want a good education for my daughter,” she said.

Also there was Chevell Anderson who said she wants her 5-year-old daughter to find a school that will push her, without lingering on material she’s already learned.

“She already knows what’s in kindergarten,” she said.

Since Maria Montessori created the method over 100 years ago, Montessori schools have sprouted up across the world. The American Montessori Society lists over 1,200 affiliated schools in the United States.

The South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation, SoBRO, is the new Montessori school’s community partner.  Sardi is working with SoBRO to raise funds, plan after-school activities and parenting workshops, reach out to the community and hire staff.

They agree that finding a location is a top priority.

The choice of a location for new charter schools is a sore point for critics of the new schools. Many of the existing charter schools in Community School District 7 share buildings with traditional schools, and parents and teachers often complain that they rob the traditional schools of space and resources.

Charter schools are publicly funded but are exempt from many of the city Department of Education’s regulations and some provisions of the union contracts that govern traditional public schools.

The Montessori school is one of a growing number of charter schools proposed in New York City since the cap on the number of charters was raised from 200 to 460 last year. The application for another charter in School District 7, Accomplish Charter School, targeted to open in September 2012, is pending.

Some critics worry about the growing number, saying charter schools drain funding from traditional public schools.

“You are seeing programs being limited, or completely undermined, such as dance programs, science labs, other things the D.O.E. considers ‘extras’,” said Julie Cavanaugh, a member of the Grassroots Education Movement, a citywide coalition that lobbies to limit the number of traditional schools the city closes and replaces with charter schools.

Neighborhood activists like Gloria Cruz welcome new charter schools as long as they act as good neighbors to existing schools. Still, she wondered about the children who don’t make it into charters, which “have a higher standard.”

“And a lot of these kids are not equipped with this higher standard,” said Cruz.

Sardi points out that parents have long complained that schools in the South Bronx are plagued with problems. Schools like hers, she says, can improve education for local children.

Initially, the new school will enroll 100 students and have 12 teachers. It will expand to 300 students in the next five years, Sardi said.

There aren’t any other Montessori schools in the area for students after fifth-grade, so graduates of the New York City Montessori School may have to change learning styles, but Sardi said by the time her students graduate, she hopes to see other Montessori-modeled schools in the area to accommodate higher grades.

Before starting the Montessori school in the Bronx, Sardi spent nearly 20 years as educational director of the Caedmon School, a private Montessori elementary school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Planning for the new Montessori school began in the summer of 2009.

Although most Montessori schools in the U.S. are private, public Montessori schools are becoming more common.

Their future in New York could ride on the track record the New York Montessori School compiles. The stakes are high, Sardi says. The director of the American Montessori Society told her: “You have to succeed.”

Marchers head down Brook Avenue on May 8.Photo by Emily Lavin

Mott Haven residents lead effort to stop the bleeding

As she sat on her aunt’s lap, tears streamed down five-year-old Maryliz Romero’s face as she thought of her uncle, whose picture she was wearing on an oversized button.

“This is what we go through all the time,” said her aunt, Lesly Romero, 35, looking down at her niece.

Two years ago, while Maryliz’s uncle was visiting friends in Mott Haven, a stray bullet took his life. He was 15 years old.

“This is why we’re out here,” said Romero.

Romero and her niece were two of hundreds who gathered at 139th Street and Brook Avenue on May 8 for the Fifth Annual Walk Against Gun Violence. Armed with signs to commemorate loved ones and bullhorns to magnify their words, they walked the streets of Mott Haven and urged the community to end gun violence–a problem many of them say is only getting worse.

“It’s a daily thing up here in the Bronx,” said Yvette Forehand, 49, who lives in Parkchester. Forehand’s son Rory was killed three years ago when gunshots were fired at a party he was attending. “I turned on the news this morning to get the weather, and I find out that three people were shot last night. It’s scary.”

Gloria Cruz, the head of the Bronx chapter of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, started the march in 2006, a year after her 10-year-old niece was struck by a stray bullet at a Labor Day block party.

“We decided to walk on the day before Mother’s Day, because Mother’s Day is hard for the moms who have lost a child to violence,” Cruz said. “We’re walking in solidarity and showing support for each other.”

Every year, the march brings out new mothers seeking comfort—like Allison Diehl, whose 26-year-old son Jeremiah was killed in 2006.

“To this day, I still drive down the road and think I see my son,” Diehl said. “Being out here, it gives me some kind of–I’m not going to say escape–but it helps.”

The group marched down Brook Avenue toward St. Mary’s Park, shouting “It takes the hood to save the hood’” and “Put down guns. Celebrate life.” People leaned out of windows and watched from their stoops and sidewalks.

The people watching from the sidelines reminded those walking that they still have a long way to go to get the community involved.

“We need to let people know, if you’re tired of what’s going on in the community, use your voice,” said Mike Tucker, 44, who was marching in memory of his son, who was shot in 2005.

And the first step, said Bernard Smith, 60, is showing people that it’s okay to speak out when they see things that are unsafe.

“People know who has guns in this community,” said Smith, who organizes anti-violence marches in Morrisania. “Sometimes they’re people in their own families. And a lot of times they want to turn them in, but they’re scared.”

But that’s only part of the problem, said Reverend Martha Overall of nearby St. Ann’s Church. The community also needs to teach neighborhood kids that violence is not a first resort when they’re settling a dispute.

“I’ve taken guns away from kids who don’t even really want to use them,” said Overall. “They’re just making a rash decision, acting impulsively.”

Many teenagers did choose to march.

“Growing up in the Bronx, you see a lot of things—fist fights, gangs,” said Kiara Melendez, 19, who was walking with the United Players, a violence prevention group from Banana Kelly High School. “For us to be a part of this is a big thing. It shows that you can change things even if you’re a part of the violence.”

“It shows that there’s hope,” agreed her friend Kelly Martinez, 20.

The march culminated in St. Mary’s Park with speeches from politicians, including Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. and Assemblyman Marcos Crespo. They promised to help organizations like Cruz’s lobby in Albany for stricter gun control laws.

But most marchers agreed that long-lasting change starts from within the community.

“Gloria’s created a network of leaders,” Overall said. “And we will be out here again next year on the eve of Mother’s Day and every year after that until the guns are gone.”

From left, Gloria Cruz, from Million Mom March, Tanisha Santiago and Yvette Montañez, Santiagos’s sister and mother, with Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

The shooting occurred at the corner of 445 East 146th Street on the corner of Willis Avenue around 3 p.m while Santiago and her son were returning from the laundromat. Santiago pushed her son up the stairs of their building, but was felled by shots before she could make it up the stairs herself.

Members of the local anti-violence organization Million Mom March gathered for a vigil to honor Santiago on September 30, along with community residents and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

“Our elected officials, police department and community leaders must continue to work together in the difficult fight to control the use of illegal guns in our streets,” Diaz said.

The Million Mom March holds a rally annually to commemorate victims of violence in and around Mott Haven. Over 400 marchers attended the 2009 rally last March to draw attention to the violence that continues to claim lives, much of it at the hands of young people with illegally-owned handguns.

Marchers took to the streets of Mott Haven on May 9, accompanied by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., to demand measures against gun violence. (Click image to view slideshow)

Naisha Pearson was just 10 years old when she was gunned downed in Saw Mill Park on East 139th Street. She was playing at a Labor Day block party in 2005 when a stray bullet struck her.

Soundslide by Maria Clark

Her killer, a 20-year-old stranger named Rene Bonilla, was shooting at someone else. He’s now doing 50-to-life behind bars.

In Naisha Pearson’s memory, Saw Mill Park was the starting point for this year’s Mother’s Day walk and rally against gun violence. It was the fourth consecutive year that the anti-gun protest was held on Mother’s Day weekend in Mott Haven, in memory of young people killed by gunfire from illegal guns.

Nearly 400 local residents and family members of slain loved ones gathered for this year’s event. They demanded solutions to the continuing scourge of gun violence in the city.

The marchers walked up St. Ann’s Avenue to St. Ann’s Episcopal Church where a half-dozen parents and other relatives of young people killed by guns shared their grief and pleaded for stricter national gun laws.

“We started this four years ago, and the turnout today is beautiful,” Naisha Pearson’s mother Taesha told the crowd as she fought back tears.

“If we keep on like this, we won’t have a future,” she said. “Our kids will be gone, and then what will we have?”

Other family members spoke out about more recent tragedies. Jamell Woods, 26, was gunned down on May 3.

“I buried him yesterday, and I thought that was the worst thing I thought I would ever have to do,” Woods’ mother Cynthia told the gathering, her voice breaking. “I’m not supposed to be burying my son; he’s supposed to be putting me away. I’m not supposed to be going through this right now.”

Sherard Bates’ brother Shannon, 33, was killed April 27.

“Conflict resolution doesn’t need firearms,” Bates said, addressing the young people in the crowd. “Ones that use firearms, they’re cowards. You’re always gonna have conflicts. How you resolve that conflict is the key.”

A gun buyback in April got 987 guns off Bronx streets (see accompanying story). More is needed, said Gloria Cruz, who founded the annual Mott Haven walk and rally after Bonilla shot Naisha, and who continues to organize the Mother’s Day event every year.

Jackie Hilley, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, which co-sponsored the march, told the crowd to pressure politicians to stem the flow of illegal guns to New York streets, “because these guns that are killing your kids and ruining your families and devastating your future are coming from states where anybody can buy a gun by just going in and handing over the money.”

“We need to close the gun show loophole at the federal level,” Hilley said, suggesting the public log onto the votesmart.com website to tell Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, “We’re tired of going to funerals in our neighborhoods from guns from other states.”

Local politicians agreed.

“We need a uniform anti-gun policy law passed,” said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., who attended the rally along with City Council members Melissa Mark Viverito and Maria Carmen del Arroyo.

Members of the local community group the Black Spades were among numerous civic organizations that marched.

Marion “Tiny” Frampton, 53, a lifelong Mott Haven resident and former spokesman for the group, which was formed by area teens in the 1970s as a way to organize young people to protect themselves from violence in the inner city, said the carnage today is a result of failed local and national policies.

“You got to offer these kids something,” Frampton said. “The government is busy building jails, but we’ve got the raggediest schools,” he added. “They’ve got to do something about the south, because that’s where all the guns are coming from.”

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and, left to right, Bishop Rodney Canion of the New Gospel Temple, Church Of God In Christ; Reverend Jay Gooding of Miracle Revival Temple, and Reverend Calvin Owens of Community Protestant Church and Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson look at some of the guns recovered the gun buy-back

When you subtract nearly a thousand guns from the arsenals of residents, what do you get? Safer Bronx streets, say the organizers of the Fourth Annual Mother’s Day Walk Against Gun Violence.

In April, the most successful gun buy-back since the New York City Police Department and the Bronx District Attorney program began last summer yielded 987 guns.

Six churches throughout the borough – including Immaculate Conception on East 150th Street and Melrose Avenue – served as the drop-off points for residents looking to exchange firearms for $200 cash cards, no questions asked.

Among the firearms turned in were 296 revolvers, 174 automatic pistols, 21 assault weapons, 13 sawed-off shotguns, 242 rifles, 163 shotguns, and 78 others, including BB guns.

Asked why they were turning in their weapons, one man said he participated in the buy-back because “I really need the money right now,” while another man said, “Times are just hard,” and one woman answered simply, “Bills.”

At one point a line formed at the ATM machine in a bodega on Melrose Avenue across the street from Immaculate Conception. Most of those waiting had come right out of the buy-back with their cash cards in hand.

One young man, who asked to be called Shaheed, elaborated on what had brought him to the event: “A gun is for protection, but you’ve gotta have something to protect,” said the 27 year-old from Harlem. “I saw it in the corner collecting dust, and at this time, I don’t have any use for it. Money is more important right now, and I’m gonna pay some bills.”

According to Gloria Cruz, leader of the Bronx Chapter of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, however, more than just tough economic times led so many people to hand in their weapons.

“Money was tough this year,” she said, “but a lot of it had to do with the churches and the community groups involved in the program. The word got out and the people from the neighborhood knew about it. Churches are easily accessible and are a nice private place where people don’t feel they will be judged.”

Cruz, who helped promote the April 25 gun buy-back and also organized the May 5 Walk Against Gun Violence, insists that people are driven by a desire to improve their community and not just by the $200 payout.

“People just wanted to step up and take responsibility by getting guns out of their homes. Changing your community starts with changing yourself. The first part is getting that gun out of your house so people don’t get hurt,” Cruz said.

She believes the gun buy-back could have been even more successful if there had been more time. “Ten hours would have been even better than six hours. The Department of Justice should take a look at how successful this was and make these regular, year-round events.”

Someone thought the gun buy-back was a chance to get rid of even more lethal weapons. Although flyers for the buy-back clearly stated that the program was for firearms only, and not explosives or ammunition, a man attempted to hand in an improvised grenade.

Police shut down the New Gospel Temple Church of God in Christ in Fairmont-Claremont Village for several hours while the Emergency Services Squad removed the grenade.

Since the program began last July, the NYPD has brought in 4,538 guns at buy-backs in churches. Guns from these buy-backs are melted down and turned into wire coat hangers.

“The Bible tells us that ‘wisdom is better than weapons,’” said Police Commisioner Ray Kelly at a press conference after the event. “You might say we are beating swords into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks and handguns into hangers.”