‘Semiautomatic’ revisits grocery store shooting
Robert Reuland parked his black Mercedes station wagon at a meter and walked across Ralph Avenue to a half-dead strip mall.
On a cloudy February morning four years ago in this bleak stretch of south Brooklyn, a 16-year-old boy leaned across a grocery store counter and fired a .45 caliber derringer into the Lebanese immigrant owner’s chest. Khalil “Pop” Hussein died where he fell.
Reuland, then an assistant district attorney, put the killers in prison. The crime faded from the headlines and the store closed down.
“This is a place where a man exited the world. You would never know it,” Reuland said. “We forget very well in New York City.”
Reuland hasn’t forgotten.
He published his first novel, “Hollowpoint,” after the Hussein killing, infuriating his boss and costing him his job. Now he’s revisiting the murder in a new novel, and his troubled relationship with District Attorney Charles J. Hynes in a lawsuit set for trial this month.
The Hussein slaying figures prominently in Reuland’s new “Semiautomatic.” The book brings back protagonist Andrew Giobberti, a bitter and burned-out assistant D.A., to prosecute a thinly fictionalized version of the 2000 killing.
“Semiautomatic” draws a bleak portrait of a Brooklyn criminal justice system peopled with dishonest cops, careerist prosecutors and killers who get away with murder.
Reuland’s cynical take has won him positive reviews. The Washington Post called “Hollowpoint” “an unforgettable journey into a fallen hero’s psyche … using language so carefully cadenced it borders on poetry.” Other reviewers called it “affecting and raw,” “simply terrific” and “an unforgettable first novel.”
He also says his writing cost him his beloved job as a prosecutor and set up the legal battle with Hynes.
His troubles began after the publication of “Hollowpoint” in 2001. Reuland was quoted in New York magazine saying: “Brooklyn is the best place to be a homicide prosecutor. We’ve got more dead bodies per square inch than anyplace else.”
State Sen. Marty Markowitz, now borough president, complained to Hynes. Reuland says he was then demoted and forced to resign. So he sued Hynes in federal court, claiming violation of his First Amendment right to free speech.
“As a novelist and as a lawyer I have an obligation to stand up for the sanctity of protected speech,” said Reuland, 40. “You shouldn’t be punished for publishing a book.”
Reuland is finishing his third book, based on the 1997 police assault on Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, but says he still wants to work as a lawyer.
He calls the lawsuit his way of rescuing his reputation as a prosecutor.
“I was fired from a job that I did well for a very bad reason,” he said. “I want the record clean.”