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    DJ Clark Kent, Who Introduced Jay-Z to the Notorious B.I.G., Dies at 58

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    He was a producer and club D.J. who helped rappers find their voices and fortunes, and who later became known as a raconteur of hip-hop history.Antonio Franklin, known as DJ Clark Kent, a widely respected hip-hop insider for four decades who had influential relationships with many leading rappers, died on Thursday at his home in Greenbrook, a township in northern New Jersey. He was 58. The cause was colon cancer, his wife, Kesha (Vernon) Franklin, said.Mr. Franklin’s career followed the trajectory of hip-hop itself. He entered the scene just as it was taking shape, in New York in the 1980s, and he reached prime time when rap itself did, in the mid-90s. After being a club D.J. for years, he moved on to work as a producer and took jobs with Atlantic Records and Motown.In 1995, he produced a rap classic — and his first hit song — with “Player’s Anthem” by Junior M.A.F.I.A., a group formed by the Notorious B.I.G., who also appeared on the track. The song became a breakout single for the group and introduced Lil’ Kim to the international hip-hop audience.The next year, he produced three songs on Jay-Z’s debut album, “Reasonable Doubt.” His most noteworthy contributions were to the song “Brooklyn’s Finest.” Mr. Franklin provided the vocals for the hook, and he suggested to Jay-Z and his manager, Damon Dash, that they include Notorious B.I.G. on the track. The two somewhat hesitantly agreed — without realizing that Mr. Franklin had already asked Notorious B.I.G. to wait downstairs. The collaboration took place instantly.That kind of behind-the-scenes orchestration was ordinary for Mr. Franklin. In 1998, he saw a young man who went by Shyne freestyling in a barbershop, then introduced him to Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, who signed him to a record deal on the spot.“I practically knew every rapper before they made their records,” Mr. Franklin told the pop culture publication Complex. “They wanted to be familiar with the D.J.s and what was happening in hip-hop. I was happening in hip-hop.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Shooting Mars Festivities at West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn

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      At least five people were shot and wounded along the route of the bustling event, which continued on despite the disruption.At least five people were shot and wounded along the route of the annual West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn on Monday, briefly disrupting — but not derailing — a crowded and colorful celebration of New York City’s Caribbean community.At least one of the victims was listed in critical condition, with the remaining four expected to recover, the police said.It was not immediately clear what led to the shooting, which occurred hours into the parade, at around 2:30 p.m., near 307 Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. But at a news conference, John Chell, the chief of patrol of the New York Police Department, described it as a targeted attack. The gunman, whom Mr. Chell described as a man in his 20s, remained at large as of Monday afternoon.It was another conspicuous episode of violence to occur alongside the event in recent years, but, soon afterward, the parade, an annual celebration of emancipation from enslavement, continued along with its festive music, colorful outfits and decorative floats.Adrianalee Watson, 15, said she was selling bracelets with her mother on Monday when they heard the gunshots and ran into a nearby building for safety. Ms. Watson said she also heard shots fired at the parade last year. On Monday, after ambulances took the victims away, she returned to her spot on Eastern Parkway and resumed her business.“It’s a fun experience, even though you do have people who ruin the fun,” she said. “You’ve just got to be safe about it. You’ve got to have a place where you can go if anything bad happens, and you’ve just got to be aware of your surroundings.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jewish Man Charged With Attempted Murder in Attacks on Muslim Neighbor

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      Izak Kadosh faces more than 40 charges, many of them hate crimes, including attempted murder and aggravated assault. Prosecutors said the attacks, in Brooklyn, went on for months.A Jewish man in Brooklyn was arrested and charged with attempted murder and hate crimes after repeatedly attacking his Muslim neighbor over several months, ultimately breaking into the neighbor’s apartment and striking him so hard with a mallet that he had internal bleeding, according to a criminal complaint.The man, Izak Kadosh, was arrested on Saturday, two days after he broke into the apartment, according to police officials. Mr. Kadosh faces more than 40 charges, including attempted murder, aggravated harassment, hate-crime assault and intent to damage property.Mr. Kadosh pleaded not guilty to all of the charges in Kings County Criminal Court on Monday. Bail was set at $25,000 cash or a $125,000 partially secured bond. He is being held on Rikers Island and is due to appear in court again on Friday.A lawyer for Mr. Kadosh declined to comment on the case.The neighbor who was attacked, Ahmed Faycal Chebira, said the harassment started soon after he moved into the building, in the Crown Heights neighborhood, in October. Mr. Chebira, who is from Algeria, said Mr. Kadosh would call him “dirty Arab” or “dirty Muslim” and spit on him.“I told him, leave me alone,” Mr. Chebira, 50, said in Arabic on Wednesday. “Everyone has their own religion in America; I don’t have a problem with anyone.”“I feel relieved now that they caught him,” Mr. Chebira continued, adding that he was in the hospital when he learned about the arrest. “I was afraid that I would leave the hospital and he would be outside.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      18 Charged in Gang Violence That Killed Two 16-Year-Old Boys

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      The authorities said those charged were as young as 15 when they committed crimes around Brooklyn that included murder.Eighteen teenagers and young men who the authorities said belonged to street gangs were charged on Wednesday with unleashing a wave of gun violence in Brooklyn that killed two 16-year-old boys and injured 10 others over a three-year period.Fifteen of those charged belonged to two gangs, made up of people from Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, that formed an alliance against other gangs in the same neighborhoods, as well as in Brownsville and Flatbush, the authorities said. The rivalry led to a rash of shootings between August 2021 and May 2024, with gang members shooting at each other on streets populated with pedestrians, cyclists and families, according to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.Some of the people charged were as young as 14 when they committed crimes that included firing guns at people, according to prosecutors. During a news conference, Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, played a series of surveillance videos that showed young men and boys, wearing hoods or masks, opening fire on busy streets, often in broad daylight.One video showed a young couple walking with a stroller on a sidewalk just before shooting erupted. In another clip, people could be seen scattering, running into stores or ducking behind garbage cans to avoid bullets.“All these videos make one thing clear: These defendants simply don’t care,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “They fire indiscriminately whenever they think that a member of an opposing gang is in the area, not thinking for a minute of the damage and trauma they’re causing to their own community.”The rivalry led to the deaths of two boys: Jaquan Gause, who was shot to death as he sat behind the wheel of a car on Aug. 16, 2021; and Nayshawn Campbell, who was shot on June 25, 2022, at about 3 a.m. as he walked in his neighborhood in Brownsville. The boys, both 16, were considered rivals of the gang alliance and were targeted by the group, according to the indictment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      N.Y.P.D. Defends Contentious Arrests of ‘Violence Interrupters’

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      The arrests, which led one of the men to be hospitalized, heightened tensions between officers and outreach workers trained to intervene in street conflicts.The New York Police Department continued on Friday to defend its arrests of two conflict mediators in Brooklyn in February, releasing body-camera and surveillance videos of the episode that police officials said showed one of the workers striking an officer.The arrests of the mediators, one of whom was injured while being swarmed by officers, exposed tensions between the police and those known as violence interrupters, who work for city-funded organizations and try to defuse street-level conflicts before they escalate, including into gun violence.The mediators, Mark Johnson and Dequann Stanley, who are longtime employees of the violence-interrupter group Save Our Streets in Crown Heights, were arrested in the episode and issued summonses for disorderly conduct. The charges were later dismissed.The men filed court papers indicating that they intended to sue the city as a result of the arrests, which they said occurred as they tried to calm a man who was being taken into police custody.But at a briefing this week and in a social media post on Friday, police officials said the men had disrupted officers as they arrested the man, who was ultimately charged with fentanyl possession.The arrests and the ensuing fallout pose a challenge to Mayor Eric Adams, whose public safety strategy leans heavily on expanding the use of interrupters, a community-based supplement to traditional policing that has taken root in other major U.S. cities. Last year, Mr. Adams announced $86 million in funding for the interrupter system in the 2024 fiscal year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More