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Yonkers Coalition Comforts, Calms Locust Hill After Shooting

YONKERS, N.Y. – Members of a Yonkers coalition are working to comfort a grieving neighborhood and quell rising tension after a man was shot and killed Friday night in Locust Hill’s Pitkin Park.

Jim Bostic, chair of the City of Yonkers Violence and Gang Prevention Coalition, said Sunday that the group’s SNUG team has been in the neighborhood since the shooting, hoping to prevent any further violence.

“The first goal is to do whatever we can to support the family,” Bostic said. “After that, we want to make sure that it doesn’t escalate into anything else where another senseless act of violence takes place.”

Yonkers police responded to Locust Hill Avenue about 8 p.m. Friday after reports of gunshots. Police said the victim was shot once and was pronounced dead at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Yonkers.

Police have not released any further information about the shooting, but Bostic said his sources in the community had identified the victim as Justin Degree, 24, of Yonkers. Degree was sentenced to five years in prison in 2008 for shooting reputed Strip Boyz street gang leader Kasheem “Killa Kash” Little.

Bostic said his SNUG team – GUNS spelled backward – has not been able to determine whether Friday night’s shooting was related to the 2008 shooting or any other gang activities.

“Hopefully this was not gang-related, and we want to make sure that it won’t become that,” Bostic said.

On Saturday, friends and family had created a small memorial near the basketball courts remembering Degree. Bostic said the shooting has created some tension in the neighborhood.

“Anytime a young man gets shot it creates tension,” Bostic said. “This is a young man whose family loves him and he was loved by many of us in the community. It does create tension and a whole litany of emotions in a situation like this.”

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