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Gov. Cuomo Calls For Gun Control At Funeral Of Slain Aide
By
Nathan Tempey
Published Sep 27, 2015
Modified Sep 27, 2015
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By
Nathan Tempey
Published Sep 27, 2015
Modified Sep 27, 2015
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Eulogizing aide Carey Gabay at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn on Saturday, Gov. Cuomo called for lawmakers to "end this scourge" of gun violence "once and for all" by demanding federal gun control. Gabay was caught in the crossfire of what police believe were feuding gang members during J'Ouvert celebrations in Prospect Lefferts Gardens early on the morning of September 7th and struck in the head. Doctors disconnected him from life support 10 days later.
Invoking the mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut, Cuomo said:
Carey Gabay, 43 years old, making a difference in life, married, hoping to start a family, ducked down for cover, from shots he never caused from a shooter he never saw and never got up. Why? Well, maybe that’s the way it is everywhere. Maybe there’s nothing you can do about it. If only that were true. It’s not.
Raised by Jamaican parents in the Boston Secor Houses public housing development in the Eastchester neighborhood of The Bronx, Gabay started working for the governor as assistant counsel in 2011 and was deputy general counsel at the state pro-development nonprofit Empire State Development at the time of his death. Reading from prepared remarks, Cuomo noted that Gabay worked to draft the SAFE Act, which bans high-capacity magazines, mandates background checks for gun purchases, and heightens penalties for crimes committed with banned guns. Cuomo urged DC Democrats to bring the government to the brink of shutdown to get gun control measures passed.
"If the far right is willing to shut down the government because they don't get a tax cut for the rich," he said, "then our people should have the same resolve and threaten to shut down the government if they don't get a real gun control law to stop killing of their innocents."
During the eulogy, Cuomo also took an oblique jab at Mayor de Blasio in the audience, evoking the New York Post's campaign to manufacture outrage about street homelessness. Cuomo said that Gabay envisioned "a society that has more compassion and a government that has more competence than to allow homeless people to sleep on the street and children to sleep in the squalor of shelters. That this great, rich city of New York should hear the words of Saint Francis and not just nod at the pope's words, but act." De Blasio was in the audience but left without speaking to reporters.
Gabay's mother, brother, two sisters, and his widow Trenelle Gabay also attended, but did not speak publicly.
Neighbor and friend Pasha Durr told the New York Times Gabay "was selfless, genuine, Carey was the real deal."
Tagged
andrew cuomo
carey gabay
gun control
gun violence
jouvert
Nathan Tempey
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