Excellent piece of reporting by Serge Kovaleski and Sarah Kershaw in this morning’s NYT, about David Garvin, the lunatic who went on a shooting rampage in the West Village last Wednesday night. I know the area around Houston and MacDougal very well, from my earliest days in New York in the late ’80s. I still find myself down there sometimes, usually to go to the Zinc Bar. Lots of other jazz clubs are nearby. Certainly this was a freak incident that tells us nothing about the safety of the neighborhood.
It’s still being said that the cops have no explanation, but the situation is clear enough from the Times story: Garvin was a paranoid nutcase and loser, ejected from the military in 1988, fired from the Wall St. Journal for threatening a colleague. He had recently staged a short comedy, but he dismissed the lead actress when he found out she was married. He cast an unmarried woman in her place and then proceeded to harass her via email with pronouncements of love.
Turns out he was a regular at the pizza place he shot up. Every time, he’d peruse the menu at great length and then order the same thing. [Cue Twilight Zone theme…]
Sounds like a dangerously borderline case, never quite sick enough to require help, but clearly sick enough to snap. What a disgusting shame that he took three people with him. Mayor Bloomberg is absolutely right to use this opportunity to speak about gun control.
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