STRAY BULLET FROM STREET FIGHT KILLS A NEIGHBORHOOD FIXTURE By ANDY NEWMAN

Enrique Miravala, known to all as Flaco, was a fixture at the corner of
Wilson Avenue and Palmetto Street in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. A
gentle, sometimes homeless alcoholic, 54 years old, he repaired cars
expertly, swept storefronts and ran errands, earning beer money and the
affection of his neighbors.

But yesterday afternoon, the street where Mr. Miravala lived his life
brought him his death. He was sitting on a blue swivel chair in front of a
bodega eating onion rings from a paper container when a stray bullet from
an argument hit him in the head, the police said.

The gunman was arrested after being beaten by several onlookers, the police
and witnesses said. And in front of the garage, the car service, and the
grocery store, people mourned the loss of a neighbor. The police identified
him as Steven Martinez, 24.

Beatriz Ocasio, 28, said of Mr. Miravala: "He was like the neighborhood
grandfather around here. Everybody loved him, everybody got along with
him."

The argument that killed Mr. Miravala started two blocks away, at Wilson
and Madison Street, a corner well known as a place where heroin, crack and
marijuana are openly traded, said Joe Vega, 30, who lives in the
neighborhood. Mr. Martinez and another man began arguing over drugs around
2:30 p.m., several witnesses said. The other man chased Mr. Martinez down
Wilson.

At Palmetto and Wilson, Mr. Martinez pulled a gun and fired four shots,
said a worker at an electronics repair store on the corner, who would not
give his name.

One bullet hit the front of a car parked in front of a mechanic's shop,
startling a man who had his head under the hood. Two others struck
elsewhere. The fourth hit Mr. Miravala, who stood up, staggered to the
doorway of Los Primos Grocery, and collapsed, said Luisita Salgado, 33, who
was watching from her mother's apartment window. Mr. Miravala died at
Wyckoff Heights Medical Center.

Several witnesses said a small crowd chased Mr. Martinez to a ramp in front
of the Hope Gardens housing project two blocks down Palmetto and, when they
caught him, beat him with fists, feet and a bicycle until the police
arrived. One of those who caught and beat him was the man he fired at,
witnesses said.

Mr. Martinez, of Stanhope Street in Bushwick, was charged with second-
degree murder, reckless endangerment and weapons possession, said Jerry
Varson, a police spokesman.

For a long time, Mr. Miravala had stayed in an abandoned building next to
Natasha's Car Service on Wilson Avenue, said Bochy Raffe, a dispatcher
there. But when the building changed hands, he was evicted and moved into
the basement of the car service and did odd jobs there.

Armando Ortiz, a custodian at Intermediate School 291, across from
Natasha's, said Mr. Miravala's neighbors looked out for him because he
looked out for them.

"Flaco" - it means skinny, which he was - "was typed homeless, but he
wasn't, because everybody took care of him," Mr. Ortiz said. "You'd ask him
to go somewhere and he'd go for you. Go to McDonald's, go get Chinese, buy
the paper. He'd walk three or four blocks to buy the Spanish newspaper."

And Mr. Miravala's skill as an auto mechanic was a local legend.

"Rain or snow, if you broke down, he'd find a way to get you on the road,"
Mr. Ortiz said.

Last night, two candles, one purple and one white, burned in a milk crate
outside Los Primos. Mr. Ortiz said Mr. Miravala would not be forgotten.

"We're not going to let them put him in a potter's field," he said. "We'll
collect enough money for a decent funeral."