After bullets were fired into a two-story house at 96 Hone Street in the Rondout area of Kingston Tuesday evening, July 18, a suspect or suspects are still at large.
According to neighbors, a white van with a sticker of Mickey Mouse in the back window pulled up at 6:20 p.m. and an occupant fired five shots into the house.
The home is divided into three apartments, Residents were in each one. No one was reported injured.
Shortly after the incident, police cordoned off the intersection with yellow tape. Police cruisers with their lights flashing barricaded Hone and West Pierpont streets a block away in four directions.
Residents of the neighborhood gathered in clusters, talking in the streets. A woman who did not want to be identified described the noise. “Pow, pow,” she said. “Then pow pow pow.”
No one was reported injured. No reason was shared for the shooting.
Lieutenant Patrick Buono said police had recovered three or four bullets. He had no comment on the gauge of the bullets recovered.
When shots are fired, explained Buono, every cop in the city responds. “We still prioritize,” he said. “A shooting into a house is certainly a high priority for us.”
The city police deoartment is currently four officers short.
Buono said that the shortage of cops didn’t affect the minimum number of officers assigned to the street. “After the scene is secured, we keep a small number here to help us process the scene, maintain crowd control, and to do a canvass,” he said.
Two teenagers stood on the porch of the building along with a child and grandmother. “A woman would have died,” says one of the teenagers, “if it wasn’t for the bin.”
A bullet went through the wall, smashing into a trash bin.
A bullet passing through the glass pane of a first-floor apartment window had left a perfect hole.
“There are children in every apartment,” observed a teenager.
A redheaded two-year-old loitered on the porch while a nearby grandmother recounted the details of the happening through a cellphone.
“We don’t have as many detectives that I can assign to work this when an initial call comes in,” said Buono. “Everybody comes in, pitches in, buttomorrow morning everyone’s gonna go back and work their cases instead of having the right number of detectives working the cases.”
With the sound of thunder in the distance, the neighbors were still talking in the streets.
The police vehicles pulled away. The neighborhood returned to its new normal.
Join the family! 
