Despite appeals of community advocates, the prayers of church leaders, and the anguished cries of relatives some of whom are from the Caribbean, killings of Black youth continue in Brooklyn.

"The first reaction is to think of quitting but that's not an option," said Bishop Cecil Riley, the West Indian pastor who heads Freedom Hall Church of God. "But we can't be discouraged. The killings are increasing and the situation seems to be getting worse instead of better."

The rising tide of homicides with the victims coming from within the mixed Caribbean immigrant and native African communities received an exclamation point, a jolt, over the week-end when a "Freaky Friday" all night party in the East New York section of the borough turned Wyona Street into a sea of blood, with 21-year-old Donzell Rogers, the father of a young son, killed and six other young people seriously injured. Ironically, the young man was killed about 24 hours before he was able to spend Father's Day with his 2 year old.

"He wasn't involved in anything, just happened to be there, at the wrong time and at the wrong place," a bystander told reporters.

His girlfriend agreed. "He was just an innocent bystander," she said. "It was some one else's fight. He had nothing to do with it but got killed."

The violence erupted, say police officers, when a young man coming up some crowded back steps of the house where the party was being held bumped into another man heading in the opposite direction and both exchanged sharp words.

A sucker punch was reportedly thrown and a male party-goer was hit. When he regained composure, he reportedly whipped out a gun and started firing. In the next 10 minutes, the loud reggae music that punctuated the air was replaced by a fusillade of gunshots, triggering a mass exodus and panic.

A man who lives a block away from the violence recalled, "you could hear the anguish in people's voices with the yelling," said Stacey Spellman.

Rogers was hit in his left side by a bullet and blood gushed from the wound. By the time he was taken to a nearby Brookdale Hospital, he was dead.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly called it a gang-related shooting, involving the "Very Crispy Gangsters." Detectives later recovered two guns – a 9-mm and a 40-caliber semi-automatic –, which they believe were used during the gunfight.

Most of the victims were teenagers, between the ages of 17 and 20 years old.

"This incident emphasizes why we must redouble our efforts to end the killings," said Bishop Riley. "We are starting a gun buyback program to get the weapons off the street while at the same time trying to reach the young people, impressing upon them that they can't go on killing each other. It's senseless."

By "we" Riley, who also heads churches in Florida, Jamaica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said that a root cause of the problem was lack of self-respect that leads people to believe that shooting or fighting brings respect. Some of the killings could also be traced to robberies and others to drugs.

"A young man accidentally brushes another and that would be interpreted as disrespect and soon guns would be used and some one lies dead. It can be that simple," said the evangelical minister.

Several months ago, the New York Police Department reached out to churches in central Brooklyn and other parts of the borough to get them involved in a stop-the-violence campaign. They formed the Clergy Task Force led by Bishops A Lyons and Gerald Seabrook. Bishop Riley was an eager participant in the effort. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes also joined in becoming a central figure and participated in at least one rally, walking through the neighborhoods, using a bull-horn to draw the attention of neighborhood residents, especially the youth and their gangs, to the nightmare. Still the murders continue.

"We can't give up," said Bishop Riley.

New York City Councilmember Charles Barron said that saturating the communities with police officers wasn't the only answer to the problem. He called for jobs for the young men, better education and youth recreational activities to help keep the young people out of harm's way.

But with the City slashing various social programs to help balance the budget, the chances of Barron getting his wish are slim.

U.S. Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, who represents sections of the crime-ridden and violence-prone community, earlier appealed for an end to the killings, saying, like Barron, Riley, Hynes, Seabrooks, Kelly and others, that the deadly violence was taking a heavy toll on the lives of so many people.

"We can't afford what's happening," Clarke said recently. "We must find the resources to turn these young people away from the deadly violence."