Opinion ID: 775760
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Tully Construction

Text: 76 Johnson served as Tully Construction's coalition coordinator and referred to it as his bread and butter. In 1990, McCall came to Tully Construction's Brooklyn Resurfacing project with twenty to thirty people, encircled field supervisor James Tully, and began chanting we want jobs. Although Tully feared for his safety, he told McCall, who he did not realize was associated with Johnson, that he could not hire anyone without speaking to Johnson. Tully then called Johnson who asked to speak to McCall. After McCall and Johnson talked, McCall and his followers left the scene. Johnson later told Tully to hire one of McCall's workers, and Tully complied. 77 Tully also used McCall as coalition coordinator on a project he directed on Eastern Parkway and employed quite a few of McCall's men there. 78 Jan Szumanski, Tully Construction's superintendent at its Union Street, Queens, site, hired two workers at Johnson's direction, although he needed neither worker, because sometimes . . .they stop the job, they push the people around. Subsequently, he laid one of the workers off, and hired another laborer, believing that BFB had sent him to replace the worker he had fired. However, the fired worker actually came from a coalition headed by a man known as Love, and the replacement worker belonged to a coalition run by Robin Laborde, also known as Bodyguard. On May 21, 1996, Szumanski called Johnson and reported that Bodyguard had come to the site. Bodyguard indicated that he was willing to deal through Johnson but asked Johnson to do something for him. Johnson refused, saying, I gotta put my peeps, peeps there first. Later, Johnson told Szumanski that Love was not to put anyone on the job. When Szumanski expressed a fear of violence on the site, Johnson responded that if they want to act stupid, then . . . everybody can act stupid. The next day a general manager at Tully told Johnson that someone had come to the site and threatened the shit out of Szumanski. Johnson assured the general manager that he would take care of the situation. 79 On May 28, 1996, Johnson learned from Vernon Smith, a BFB leader, that Szumanski hired Bodyguard's man because he believed that he was the replacement for Love's fired worker. Johnson then called Bodyguard who blamed Love for threatening Szumanski. Johnson accused Bodyguard of secretly working with Love to pressure BFB but nevertheless allowed Bodyguard to place one man at the job and told Szumanski to lay off Love's man. Later that day, Johnson told Smith that he suspected Love and Bodyguard were working together, and Smith advised Johnson to knock everybody off the motherfucking job. 80 On June 3, 1996, Szumanski told Johnson that he had been forced to keep one of Love's workers after Love stopped the Union Street job for half an hour. Johnson told him to lay off Love's worker. Ten minutes later, Johnson warned Love, I'm gonna do what I gotta do, and Love responded in kind. On the same day, Johnson told McCall that Love claimed McCall had authorized the hiring of Love's worker. He later explained to Smith that he was trying to push [McCall] into the mix. Smith questioned the necessity of involving McCall because the twins would take care of it. Minutes later, Johnson spoke to Daniel Hunter, who has a twin brother named Rodney. The two agreed that it was useless to try to negotiate with Love, and Hunter said, I see that nigger tomorrow, I'm gonna bark on that nigger. Him and all of them. Whoever he with. Johnson told Hunter that he could replace the coalition workers at the site with his own workers. 81 The next day there was a shoot-out at the site. Police officers arrived too late to apprehend the perpetrators, but an hour later a detective heard Smith say into a pay telephone, knock both of them off and put Tyborne's [Daniel Hunter's] people in. After the shootout, there were no further problems at the Union Street site, and Johnson continued to act as coalition coordinator. 82 During spring 1997, Tully hired a man from a minority coalition in Red Hook. He was also pressured by Tyborne and Powerful (Rodney Hunter) to hire one of their men. Unaware that Tyborne and Powerful worked for Johnson, Tully asked Johnson to intercede. Johnson directed Tully to hire Tyborne's man. Later, Tully laid off the minority worker from Red Hook and hired another of Hunter's men. 83 The Hunter twins also stopped work at Tully's McGuinness construction project in 1998. As a result and after speaking to Johnson, Tully agreed to hire one of Hunter's coalition members. 84