For several generations, the Kingdome has been a site where basketball reputations have been built and affirmed. Many of New York’s best hoopers and numerous players from around the country have electrified the crowds at the outdoor court in the belly of the Martin Luther King Jr. Towers — the 13.75 acre, 10-building housing development situated between 112th and 115th Streets and Malcolm X Boulevard, still referred to as Lenox Avenue by longtime New Yorkers even after its co-naming in 1987.
Last Friday night, King Towers — formerly the Stephen Foster Houses, erected between 1949 and 1951 and renamed in 1968 for the slain civil rights leader — became the belly of the beast. Gun violence upended opening night of this summer’s Kingdom Games tournament: three people were shot, and one of them, a standout former college and professional player, was killed.
Kinu Rochford, 35, of Brooklyn, was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition but did survive the gunshot wound to his head sustained while standing on the sidelines between games. As of AmNews press time, no one had been arrested for the shootings and the NYPD had not provided a motive for the heinous act, perpetrated in a setting occupied by dozens of bystanders, mostly teenagers and young adults.
“I am heartbroken for the family of the man who was killed last night at a basketball tournament in Harlem,” wrote New York City Mayor Zhoran Mamdani of the social media platform X. “This senseless violence must stop. New Yorkers deserve to spend the summer watching and playing sports, attending community events, and enjoying our public spaces — places where families, friends, and neighbors joyfully gather, not where people are at risk of becoming victims of violence.”
From James Madison High School in Brooklyn to Globe Tech in Manhattan, then Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey (where he averaged 14.7 points and 8.9 rebounds as a senior in 2013), basketball took Rochford to the Netherlands, France, and Lithuania among other countries over his nine-year professional playing career, which ended in 2021. With a degree in sports administration from FDU, Rochford worked as a coordinator for Win NYC, a homeless service provider, while still playing basketball simply for the love of the game.
The account of the shooting at King Towers is one that is sadly too common, even in spaces presumed safe like basketball tournaments. Last August 23 at Haffen Park in the Baychester section of the Bronx, also known as “The Valley,” 32-year-old Jaceil Banks was shot in the torso and 17-year-old Anthonaya Campbell was shot in the head at a similar tournament. Both died. Four suspects, including a 17-year-old and 16-year-old, were charged with murder.
Meanwhile, last August at Gardella Park in White Plains, New York, a short drive from the Bronx, 20 shots were fired after the semifinals of the well attended Ferris World Ball Tournament. All three of the surviving victims were from the Bronx.
Access to guns, most alarmingly for youth, remains an urgent epidemic. Socioeconomic factors have been debated but few efficacious solutions have stemmed the tide of what is undeniably a public health crisis. The issue has been profoundly examined in this publication by writer Shannon Chaffers in her recent three-part series “Under the Gun.”
“The lack of early childhood education, violence prevention programs, community centers in NYCHA complexes, and more importantly, [vital readjustment and rehabilitation] programs in juvenile facilities” are critical reasons for youths’ engagement in violent behaviors involving guns, said Derek Haynes, a Harlem native, fixture in New York City basketball circles, and former 15-year counselor in the city’s juvenile justice system.
However plausible these solutions may be, they haven’t stemmed the trauma inflicted on communities, where cries of “When will it end?” ring out at funeral after funeral.
