shield your eyes

These are the facts, according to the government: In 2005 Erion Shehu was shot and killed in a drive-by in Queens, allegedly by the Krasniqis and Rrapo. Nineteen shots, 7 hits. Gambling receipts on his person and a gun in his car.

Six months after this (court records talk about the Krasniqi brothers’ habit around this time of sticking guns into people’s mouths to threaten them), the Krasniqis shot Erenick Grezda in the head and dumped him on the side of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

Grezda was around 22. He came from Albania as a teenager without his parents. He lived in Bensonhurst with some roommates. His uncle said he knew him since he was a little boy. A normal kid, he said. He changed when he got older. He worked in construction a little, was always struggling financially. His uncle helped him out. His uncle was the one who identified him at the morgue. Two gunshots to the head. His uncle flew with his body back to Albania so his parents could bury him. The uncle said the FBI came around then about the murder, and they came around recently about the trial. It seems nobody from Grezda’s family will be attending.