Wilson Batista Jr. still fights to hold on to his childhood. He wants to go back to Timberline Park, to meet friends, to play basketball. But he can’t just now.

“Would you want to go back there?” the 14-year-old asks about the Brentwood playground where he was nearly killed 10 months ago. A gunman’s bullet pierced his eye while he was playing basketball with friends.

Wilson has become a symbol of the senseless violent crime that has spiked in Brentwood and Central Islip in the past year. Fueled in part by gang activity that has plagued the area and others on Long Island in recent years, Brentwood has become the center of an aggressive law enforcement and county response since neighborhood residents began complaining about the fears they are living with daily.

“It’s [the gangs] against the public,” said Wilson Jr., whom police say was shot when someone mistook him for a rival gang member. An 18-year-old was charged in the case.

The road back

Wilson Jr. knows he is lucky to be alive. After the shooting on June 15, he spent five months in the hospital. “They only gave me a 10 percent chance of life. You do the math,” he said. “Hit the bull’s-eye from a mile away.”

Doctors told the Batistas that even if Wilson lived, he might never fully recover.

“No talking, no walking, couldn’t guarantee the eye – nothing,” Wilson Batista Sr. said. “Now look at him.”

For 40 long nights, the Batistas paced the halls of Schneider Children’s Hospital in New Hyde Park as their son clung to life in the intensive care unit.

“How much he’s recovered I can’t really put in words,” the boy’s mother, Ramona, said.

Still, his injuries have been severe. Wilson lost an eye, and has poor vision in the other. He lost some cognition, and has limited use of his left arm.

He relies on a cane to help him slowly move through his parents’ modest three-bedroom home near Timberline Park. Wilson attends three physical therapy sessions a week.

One session treats his 20/400 vision in his left eye. “He can’t see much. He can’t read,” Wilson Sr. said. He’s still not back in school.

Another therapy session treats his walking ability. After spending months in a hospital bed and months in a wheelchair, Wilson still doesn’t have full strength in his legs.

The third therapy session concentrates on his speech. When the bullet became lodged in Wilson’s brain, it severely disrupted his cognition, his family said. But therapy is helping. “I want [him] to have physical therapy every day,” Wilson Sr. said. “The money isn’t there.”

Bills add up

Following Wilson’s shooting, Ramona quit her job at a factory, and his father cut back his schedule as a custodian at Southside Hospital in Bay Shore.

The Batista family received monetary aid from Suffolk Legis. Ricardo Montano’s office, along with private donations totaling about $12,500.

“He’s come a long way and the family is strong and resilient,” Montano said.

The biggest help came from the Long Island Housing Services, Wilson Sr. said. Lisa Purzak, a housing counselor, helped the Batistas work with the bank to lower their monthly mortgage from $1,800 down to just above $900.

“What saved the house was Bank of America reducing the rate,” Purzak said. “Not every story is a success story.”

Ramona is home more, cooking dinner for the family, and Wilson Sr. often takes his son for drives around the neighborhood and to the mall.

“I’ll take care of them when I grow up,” Wilson Jr. said.

Wilson’s expression brightens when he talks of his family, and all they’ve done to support him – including giving him gifts.

But he doesn’t hesitate when asked what was the best gift he received. In a powerful and steady voice, Wilson says:

“My life back.”

The video that paired with this story is here. It was shot and edited by Alejandra Villa, a Newsday videographer. The link is here more for the purposes of safe keeping.

Freshman Kayla Morrissey slides across the plate to register her second 3-run homer of the game. Credit: Tim Robertson

Glen Cove softball continued its torrid start Friday afternoon as it cruised to a 12-1 win against Manhasset at home.

Big Red got a gigantic lift from freshman Kayla Morrissey. The center fielder jumped out on Manhasset pitcher Kristen Leung early as she tore a three-run home run that scored Nicole Alexander and Hailey Langone.

“I haven’t been hitting so far this season,” Morrissey said. “I just wanted to get a hit.”

Read the full article here.

First baseman Peter Cappiello rips one of his two singles. Credit: Tim Robertson

A two-run home run off their opponents’ bat just wasn’t the way coach Carmine Rotolo wanted his Glen Cove team to start the game Friday afternoon.

Big Red fell behind to Clarke High School 3-0 after the first inning and couldn’t crawl back into the game, dropping the contest 5-0.

“We’re just not mentally there yet to compete with a team like that,” Rotolo said.

Read the full article here.

Annie Bleiberg shows the tattoo the Nazis put on her arm when she was forced into their concentration camps during World War II. Credit: Tim Robertson

Holocaust survivors and relatives of those who died by the hands of Adolf Hitler called on local citizens to quit the recent trend of cyber-bullying – as they said bullying of Jews in Germany and Poland was a precursor to the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II.

The survivors and the families met at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center Nassau County in Glen Cove this morning to commemorate the upcoming Yom HaShoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day.

View the full article, including video, here.

The multi-million dollar Glen Cove Ferry Terminal is one step closer to reality after the City Council awarded a bid to start construction on the project at Tuesday night’s meeting.

Chesterfield Associates of Westhampton Beach received a contract for waterborne and site improvements – more or less to get the project off the ground.

Read the full article here.

A trio of state grants have paved — and paid — the way for Town of North Hempstead projects to begin at two Port Washington beaches.

The town board unanimously approved two bond resolutions Tuesday evening to spend $530,000 to build a new boat ramp at Bar Beach, and $200,000 to rehabilitate wetlands and erosion issues in Bar Beach Cove.

Read the full article, with video, here.

In the past few days I’ve noticed a growing journalism trend around me and I can’t take it anymore. I’ve experienced too many (well, I guess one is too many) and very diverse examples of journalists foregoing rules of ethics, grammar and style.

I’m usually on board with everything online journalism-related, but do words popping up on a screen – and the ability to change them in an instant – remove our principles. Does it matter if we submit copy with hofstra university uncapitalized? Or if we write out two thousand four hundred and 8 dollars? (OK, I made that last one up).

After all, there is an editor standing between the publish button and a reporter. After all, if it gets through the gatekeeper and to the Web, it can be changed immediately.

All to often I’ve seen journalists take the Web as if it wasn’t as indelible on the minds of readers as newspapers are. But what happened to re-reading copy before moving it? Or looking up a term in the AP Stylebook? Now with the number of sloppy copy I’ve come across, it seems that these don’t matter anymore.

In addition, in a discussion with a faculty member at Hofstra, it was said that copy editors are close to extinction as media orgs continue to cut back. An assignment editor can serve as a copy editor, and who needs AP copy anymore when the AP costs so much? 

I don’t argue with this point. That as news orgs slice budgets, the copy desk will get sacrificed, but with it will the necessity, the desire and the pride to have clean copy face the chopping block?

There is a misguided assumption out there that the Web is a flaky cousin of a newspaper. That the Internet doesn’t have the same gravitas as a print publication. But it is the content that decides the importance of a story – not whether it appears in print or in HTML.

Therefore, journalists shouldn’t ignore the proper ethical and stylistic traditions that journalism has just because the medium is changing.

Timothy Robertson
Managing Editor
Nassau News Live

The fight between William Burton (left), and Samuel Ayipe (right), was one of the many bouts featured during the Golden Gloves tournament at Glen Cove High School on Thursday night. Ayipe won in an unanimous 5-0 judges' decision.

What usually is a space full of teenagers running around in gym clothes was turned into the center of the New York City boxing world on Thursday night, as Glen Cove High School hosted six quarterfinal round bouts in the 2010 Golden Gloves tournament.

Four men’s 165-pound weight class matches and two women’s 152-pound weight class bouts brought roughly 400 people to the school for more than 2 hours of competition.

“I like boxing, and my grandkids here are also interested, so I took I them to see the Golden Gloves,” said Glen Cove resident Tony Schettino.

“We may have a future champion here,” he said referring to one of his three grandchildren watching the bouts with him.

The fight of the night – and the one that created the most buzz – came in the second bout between James Clarke and Francisco Suero. The crowd booed as Clarke’s name was announced as the winner, and cheered as Suero exited the ring. Suero looked to be well in control in the third round after an even fight in the first two rounds, but in a 3-2 judges’ decision, Clarke came out on top.

“I took my time, and did what I had to do,” said Clarke on why he won the fight.

Schettino, a retired New York City police officer, said it was one of the better matches of the night.

“There was a lot of action in it,” he said.

The men fought for three rounds, which were three-minutes each, and the women fought for four two-minute rounds.

Frank Galarza, 24, of Brooklyn, earned a semifinal debut in one of the more physical bouts of the night. He defeated opponent Kevin Rooney with a 5-0 judges’ decision.

“I just tried to dig it out. Dig, dig, dig,” Galarza said afterward. “I was kind of expecting him to stay in there. He was a strong kid. But to the best man win.”

On the women’s side, a West Point senior earned the evening’s only knockout. Nargis Kabiri, 23, a Pipestone, Minn. native, won in convincing fashion just under 2 minutes into the second round. Kabiri, who received special permission from her superiors to get off campus for the fight, said she just went for the open shots.

“My coach told me just to pace myself,” Kabiri said after the fight. “It helped that she was shorter, it went straight to her head.”

Kabiri played two seasons for Army’s basketball team before trading in her jersey for a pair of gloves. Thursday marked the first boxing match of her career.

“I was actually anxious. I always wanted to fight,” she said. “I was just glad to have this opportunity.”

And the boxing semifinals in Nassau County will continue next week. On Tuesday, the Golden Gloves will go to Saint Catherine’s Church in Franklin Square, and the tournament will head to the Freeport Recreation Center on March 11.

The finals will take place at Madison Square Garden on March 25 and 26.

Karen Sloan, the school board president, and Geoffrey Gordon, the superintendent of schools, look on during public comment at Tuesday's board of education meeting.

It’s budget season in Port Washington, and the age-old debate between taxes and school cuts reared its head at Tuesday night’s school board meeting.

As the district continues to work on its $128 million budget — a 2.92 percent increase over last year’s budget — a handful of residents spoke out against any increase in the current economic climate.

Frank Russo, a Port Washington taxpayer, urged the board and the district’s superintendent, Geoffrey Gordon, to keep the budget where it is with a zero percent increase.

“It would be a major, major boost for morale across Long Island,” Russo said.

Russo recommended the board not pay teachers a “cost of living” raise, but maintain the step raises that are built into the current teacher contract.

Roughly five people agreed-by-applause, while the teacher-dominated crowd sat quietly with disapproving looks.

Gordon took a moment between public comments to address Russo’s statement, shutting down any notion that his administration would lay teachers off to help cut costs. “Our commitment is not to lose jobs for our staff,” he said.

Christine Vasilev, a teacher at Manorhaven Elementary School, and the president of the Port Washington Teacher’s Association, said the district didn’t “just become a district of excellence” and that it took investing lots of money to do so.

“We all benefit from an excellent education,” Vasilev said. “I ask the members of the board of education not to think in the shortsighted, limited way.”

Other residents, advocating a zero percent tax increase, made it a point several times to stress the importance of quality teachers, and that the district should look at increasing class sizes to reduce budgetary costs.

Residents will have the opportunity to contribute more to the school budget process on March 9 at Schreiber High School during the second budget work session. The third and final budget work session will then take place on March 23 at the high school which will include input from the Board of Education and community as well. The vote on the budget will be held on May 18.

As the meeting wrapped up with final public comments, everyone seemed in agreement on one issue.

“Quality of teachers is very important and that is the one thing I would love to see and put more money into,” Russo said.

Frank Russo tells board members that he wants to see a zero percent increase in the school budget this year.

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