Murder first, then a Bus Ride Home

By DAN ACKMAN

A South Bronx scaffolding worker testified yesterday in Bronx Supreme Court that his friend shot a coworker in broad daylight, hopped a city bus home, and later admitted to the crime.

Kasim Adams, 27, is on trial for murdering Norman Rumpf two-and-one-half years ago on Manida Street in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. 

Yesterday, Adams' friend and coworker Frederick Blackman told the court that he was walking with Adams and Rumpf, also a friend, from their workplace in mid-afternoon when Adams drew a silver revolver and shot Rumpf in the head.  Then, as Rumpf, 26 when he died, lay on the sidewalk, Adams pointed the gun again and fired a second shot.

Blackman testified that after Adams fired the shots he ran to Hunts Point Avenue and caught the Number 6 bus home.

________________

“Why you kill Norman like that?”
Blackman recalled asking.
___________

Blackman said he also went home.  There, he spoke to his wife, and telephoned his employer before calling the police. 

While waiting for detectives from the 41st Precinct to arrive, Blackman took a phone call from Adams.

"Why you kill Norman like that?" Blackman recalled asking.

According to Blackman, Adams responded, "He asked for it.  All day he was ragging me and ragging me."

Blackman's testimony is essential to the district attorney's case because no murder weapon was found and there are no other eyewitnesses.

On the day of the murder, Blackman, Adams and Rumpf had spent the morning at their jobs at Capella Erectors "playing and joking and snapping" at each other.  It was quite common, Blackman, said for the three men to trade jokes and insults.

But that day, Adams was angry at Rumpf.  The two men almost came to blows, and he was forced to step between them, Blackman said.  Blackman prevented the fist fight.  But that afternoon, Adams, who was two hours late getting back from lunch, was waiting for Rumpf outside the company gate. 

The three men all walked away-- Blackman and Rumpf planning to go window shopping on Southern Boulevard-- when Adams, walking two steps behind his coworkers, fired his first shot.

Blackman said he started to run, but stopped and turned to see Adams standing over a fallen Rumpf.  He "walked to the front side of Norman and shot him in the head," Blackman said.  The gunman then reached into the dead man's pocket, took his money, and ran to catch the bus.

Blackman testified that when he heard the first shot, "I thought they maybe were shooting at all of us."

"Who is 'they?'" asked Robert Saltzman, Adams' attorney. 

Blackman said that the area near his workplace was known for drug dealing and his first thought was that the shot he hear might have been related to a drug dispute.  But then he saw Rumpf lying on his side and Adams firing a second shot at point blank range.

The defense tried to discredit Blackman's testimony by insinuating that Blackman and Rumpf were having a "business dispute" and that the business was drugs.  Blackman denied the suggestion and added that he had never "possessed" or fired a gun.  He also denied that the reason Adams called him an hour after the murder was to accuse him, Blackman, of committing the crime. 

Blackman did admit that he was once convicted on a drug charge and is now on parole.  He also admitted to knowing the difference between a revolver and an automatic.  But that knowledge, he said, came "from TV."

During Blackman's testimony, Adams, dressed casually in a checked shirt, rolled up jeans and sneakers, was accompanied by his lawyer Mr. Saltzman, a heavyset man in a black pinstriped suit and a Bugs Bunny tie.  Facing life in prison, he had no family or friends with him in court.

When Saltzman got up to ask questions, Adams was completely alone.