offered us the opportunity to sleep in the cellar and my father would be the janitor. and that s where we began and that s where my memory begins, in a high crime density area known for good reason as hell s kitchen. there was a lot of crime there. is that what excited your interest in law and pursuing a career in law? well, it did excite my interest in not being on the criminal side. i mean, put it that way. there was crime all around, and i had made up my mind early that i didn t want to be a cowboy and i didn t want to be a fireman and i didn t want to be a crook either. and that sort of much left me to go to the law and i have focused on it ever since. after you graduated from harvard law school in 1943, you joined the us military and joined a battalion preparing for the invasion of france. what are your key recollections of that time? i enlisted wherever i could get
my parents were young immigrants fleeing persecution and poverty, no money, no skills, no language, and lucky to have some friendly new yorker offer us, my father, who had been trained as a shoemaker, but they didn t need any boots made in new york, there were no cowboys. but the owner of a building offered us the opportunity to sleep in the cellar and my father would be the janitor. and that s where we began and that s where my memory begins, in a high crime density area known for good reason as hell s kitchen. there was a lot of crime there. is that what excited your interest in law and pursuing a career in law? well, it did excite my interest in not being on the criminal side. i mean, put it that way. there was crime all around, and i had made up my mind early that i didn t want to be a cowboy and i didn t want to be a fireman and i didn t want to be a crook either.
republicans say it would be premature to try to have a new discussion about new laws with a national investigation still ongoing. lester. peter alexander, thank you. good to have you here. we re tracking a major cross-country storm on the move. the powerful system battering the west coast now pushing eastward. 13 states under winter weather alerts from california to wisconsin. the threat really ramps up friday with 47 million americans at risk of high winds and possible tornadoes from the midwest to the deep south. here in new york, law enforcement officials say several indictments and arrest warrants have been issued after a string of robberies and assaults targeting gay bars left two men dead. stephanie gosk now with more from our nbc news investigation. reporter: new york city s hell s kitchen, one of manhattan s most dynamic neighborhoods, a favorite spot for the lgbtq community, now a target, the nypd says, for thieves using a debilitating and sometimes deadly cocktail of
reporter: ramirez was found dead in a taxi after leaving the ritz bar and lounge in hell s kitchen last april. police said he died of an apparent drug overdose. the family tells nbc news tens of thousands of dollars were stolen from his accounts too. it became very clear that this was rampant with many victims and different groups or different rings doing the same thing. how do you watch someone die and then walk out the door and start using their credit cards to drink and eat? reporter: tonight ten months after her son s death, two law enforcement officials say there are indictments. the d.a. issuing arrest warrants for six men allegedly involved in 17 robberies, some facing murder charges, and it doesn t stop there. the medical examiner s office tells nbc news it is involved in the investigation of several additional deaths in similar circumstances.
young political consultant s death was a drug overdose, not part of a crime according to his mother, linda cleary. police wanted to go with it was grand larceny, it was a theft. did you go in that moment, there was something about the drugs that doesn t make sense to me. she was convinced after her sister sent this nbc news article about 25-year-old julio ramirez. linda, this is odd, you need to read this this has a weird similarity. reporter: ramirez was found dead in a taxi after leaving the ritz bar and lounge in hell s kitchen last april police say he died of an apparent drug overdose the family tells nbc news, tens of thousands of dollars were stolen from his accounts, too. it became very clear that this was rampant with many victims and different groups or different rings doing the same thing. how do you watch someone die and