Carlos had already been shot twice, and had his arm slashed in a recent fight with a drug dealing couple next door. He had been threatened by a local dealer with an Uzi. A police patrol car cruised by the Starr Street house regularly to check on their safety. Maria was hit in the temple and killed by one of five bullets fired through her window from a passing car. The police patrol had passed by one hour earlier.
Brand loyalty is built by local dealers.
This is typical of the scene in Bushwick. The Hernandez family had a high profile in the war on drugs. Chief Frances X. Smith, of the Brooklyn homicide squad, disclosed that Hernandez had been providing information about drug trafficking to the police for several years. Carlos as a squealer, as a rat. Perhaps it is because they had become part of a campaign to prosecute and imprison their neighbors.