The Murder of Jonny Habib

On New Year's Day in 1984, 18-year-old New Yorker Jonny Habib was beaten to death with a baseball bat in an Upper East Side arcade, the victim of a possible mistaken identity and whatone reportcalled"a spasm of teenage machismo."The arcade was running without a license, and according to some reports, other patrons continued playing their games as the murder took place.

Habib -- described as a tall, lanky young man with a love of electronics, videogames and girls -- was the son of separated parents, and the grandson of a Turkish rabbi. He was a dancer, and had a particular fondness for disco rollerskating and hanging out at Studio 54. On the morning of the first, plans to hang out with his girlfriend fell through, so Habib headed down to the Games, Games, Games arcade to play Atari's Star Wars, one of his favorites.

Games, Games, Games was seen by most as an unlicensed arcade, and one that officials had been attempting to shut down for the past two years. Zoning regulations of the time prevented large game parlours from operating in the area, but the arcade's owners -- a company called March Toys -- maintained that Games, Games, Games was not an arcade. Rather, it was a showroom floor for the sale of arcade cabinets directly to consumers. The quarters spent on the games, they maintained, were"down payments"toward an eventual purchase.

At about 7:30 that night, 17-year-old Joseph Brennan and 21-year-old Richard Dinnery entered the arcade, the latter wielding a baseball bat, searching for a man named Brian. Allegedly Brian had been harrassing Brennan's girlfriend, who was also Dinnery's sister. It is unclear exactly what provoked the attack (Brennan later testified that Habib gave him"a funny look"), but witnesses said that Brennan started punching Habib while Dinnery came behind him and hit him over the head with his bat.

Witness reports say that Brennan threatened the other arcade-goers while the fatal beating commenced, telling them to continue playing their games. Dinnery's beating was savage, and at trial, it was revealed that even Brennan had trouble stopping him.

The beating doesn't appear to be a case of mistaken identity, at least not entirely, as the duo eventually found Brian that night, who managed to get away with a few bruises before police chased the attackers away.

Three days after the attack the owners of the arcade quietly trucked all of the games out and padlocked the doors, shutting down the entire operation. At trial Brennan was given the maximum sentence of 7 to 22 years for combined manslaughter and assault charges. Dinnery went to trial separately under a plead of insanity, but we were unable to locate records of that trial.

{Images:New York Magazine, via Google Books}

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