Just off Brighton Beach Avenue on 6th Street is where they moved Sammie’s things. Amongst the dozens of burning candles and brightly dyed flowers are a full bottle of Colt 45, a small bottle of vodka and a carton of Muscle Milk. A neon green poster-board is taped to the brick wall of Brighton Deli, with short messages scrawled on it like a page out of a yearbook: “RIP Sammy. U was the last one we expected. U was the golden child of all this mess.”
Just around the corner is the door to 607 Brighton Beach Avenue, where Samuel White was shot and killed by the police on September 12th. This is where Sammie’s memorial used to be. A few photos of him remain—olive skinned with buzzed hair, wearing a big, brown hooded fur coat. A sign used to hang here that read, “Fuck the pigs.”
Samuel, or Sammie, White was 20 years old. To the people who knew him, he was the least likely die in this way. They call him a good, sweet kid who stayed out of trouble. But after his death, the newspapers called him a cop-stabbing thug.
Sammie and his girlfriend Anastasia Latman were together for five years until that Saturday when, according to police reports, she called 911 to report that she was raped and being held hostage by him. A five-hour stand off followed.
“He was on the phone with one of our friends,” said John Raymond, a friend of Sammie’s. “He said he was scared to come down and surrender, ‘cause he knew he was gonna get shot. For some odd reason, he knew he was gonna die.”
Finally, Sammie came at the police with a knife and two officers shot him five times.
In a neighborhood where cops are already despised and distrusted by most residents, an incident like this only adds fuel to the fire. Sammie’s death led to even more conspiracy theories and hostility toward the police.
“Everybody here hates the cops. They never help nobody,” said Stan Shuvalov. “And when there’s domestic problems they come in thinking they’re superheroes…they could have shot him in the leg or something. They shot to kill.”
Stan says he knows everyone in Brighton Beach. He remembers hanging out with Sammie in Pegasus Bar. “We’d go upstairs and play pool. His friends would go jump people. He would hang out with his girlfriend.”
“But we had our problems,” Stan said. “Not with him, but with his crew.”
Sammie’s “crew” was called Dirty Cash. Although they are supposedly involved in drug dealing and home invasions, Stan said that Sammie stayed out of it. “Everyone else—total crack-head. But Sam wasn’t into that…What happened in there was a big mistake. He was a good kid, that’s my word. And I hate Dirty Cash. But he didn’t deserve this at all.”
John Raymond and Zack Sharhan saw Sammie on his way to work just five days before he died. They said he was always working or with his girlfriend. “He was a good kid and they killed him for nothing,” Zack said. “Cops are criminals.”
Although the neon green poster has come loose and fallen from the rain, the messages to Sammie are still there: “I never thought it would be you. You were one of the sweetest people I know and will cherish our memories till it’s my time to go. Justice will be served. Till we meet again.”
