The suspected triggerman in the Pine Avenue shooting that left two men dead and four others wounded earlier this year will be arraigned on murder charges here once he is returned from Florida.
The suspect, Norman Pryor, 25, formerly of Robinson Court, is wanted here for violation of parole on a robbery conviction. He is currently in custody following his arrest by federal marshals.
On Monday, Det. Capt. John Soltys and Det. Frank Coney flew to Miami to question Pryor concerning his role in the early morning shooting spree outside the former Dante's Ristorante at 29th Street and Pine Avenue.
Pryor has a lengthy arrest record dating back to 1994, when he was picked up by city police for criminal impersonation and resisting arrest at the age of 16. Numerous small-time arrests on drug, petty theft and assault charges followed.
He made the big time in March 1996, when he drew a sentence of up to four years in state prison in connection with a drug-related shooting incident near the intersection of 12th and Niagara streets, records show. He was 18 years old.
In September of 1999, former county court Judge Amy Fricano sentenced Pryor to five years for a violent robbery. He was paroled on May 9 of this year, just two months before the Pine Avenue murders.
The deadly fusillade on the sidewalk in front of Dante's stunned the city. Shortly after 3 a.m. on Sunday, July 6, a crowd estimated at more than 300 milled about following the closing of a hip-hop club that had set up shop in the former Italian eatery.
Violence erupted and gunfire shattered the hot summer night. When it was over, two men, Joshua Hunt,19, and Shaloin Smith, 26, lay dead on the pavement. Four others, including three women, had been wounded in the melee.
Pools of blood and shell casings littered the street, and officers arriving on the scene were overwhelmed by the hostile crowd. State Police and Niagara County Sheriff's deputies had to be called in to back up the vastly outnumbered city police officers.
The night of the Dante's shootings was the bloodiest in a year that saw eight or perhaps nine killings in the Falls. One suspicious, arson-related death on Niagara Street has yet to be classified as a homicide by the NFPD despite considerable evidence indicating it was.
Police blame drastic cuts in manpower and the ease with which violent career criminals like Pryor can gain early release from prison as the primary reasons for the increasing violence.
"We keep locking them up, and they keep letting them out," one top cop said. "You know you're going to have trouble with them again."
Pryor will be charged with Hunt's murder once he is brought back to Niagara County by parole authorities.
It is still uncertain whether he will also be charged in Smith's death, police said.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 16 2003 |