On the evening of July 9, 1928 four Puerto Rican longshoremen were gunned down in the Red Hook section of northwest Brooklyn. Two of the shooting victims died and the other two were taken to a hospital for treatment. Only four bullets were fired from a speeding green sedan that escaped rapidly through dense Brooklyn traffic. Authorities established a cordon to section off a block but still lost the shooters in the crowded night streets. By July 12 four persons had been arrested for the murders and wounding of the dock workers. Among them was a young woman from Akron, Ohio. She was from an affluent family and worked as a hostess in clubs in New York City and Coney Island.