End of Murder Trial Closes Dark Chapter in Warminster's History

After two days of expert and eyewitness testimony, a jury spent 12 hours deliberating before acquitting 58-year old Domingo Negron of the murder of Joseph Kwiatkowski, who was shot in the back during a 1973 brawl in Warminster's Lacey Park section, was paralyzed and died in 2009.

The prosecution presented evidence from forensic pathologist Ian Hood that showed jurors that Kwiatkowski's death was the result of infections from bed sores that Kwiatkowski suffered for most of post-shooting life. The defense countered that there were too many other factors in the 36 years between the shooting and death, including an injury that occured at a nursing home, that could be pointed at as the reason for Kwiatkowski's death.

Family members from both sides of the incident recounted different versions of the events leading up to the shooting. The one constant thread in all the testimonies was the bubbling racial tension that erupted in the brawl, shooting and subsequent riot.

Orginally established as a housing development by the federal government in the 1940s for employees of the Brewster Aircraft factory, Lacey Park was later turned into low-income housing and apartment buildings by investors after the factory was closed and turned in the Naval Air Development Center.

During the 1960s and into the '70s, it became a popular destination for Hispanic families moving out of Philadelphia, creating friction among the rest of the pre-dominantly white population.

That friction caught fire on Mother's Day in 1973 when the brawl occurred between Negron and his brothers and Kwiatkowski and his friends and family members. Jorge Lopez Negron and Guillermo Lopez Negron told the jurors that they and Domingo were pulled from their vehicle and attacked by as many as 20 white men outside a sandwich shop known as "The Hut." Witnesses for the prosecution said that Kwiatkowski, then 18 years old, got involved with the brawl when he received word that four Puerto Rican men were beating his two brothers with wooden boards.

However it started, the fight ended when Negron fired a handgun into the crowd, striking Kwiatkowski and paralyzing him from the mid-torso down. The fighters dispersed, Kwiatkowski was sent to the hospital and Negron was arrested and later convicted of assault, serving a year in prison. But the violence returned and intensified later that night.

Gunshots rang throughout the Lacey Park neighborhoods as Warminster police officers roamed the area in an attempt to quell the riots. The action eventually subsided, but the reputation of Lacey Park, now known as Warminster Heights, still remains damaged.

Police action reported by Warminster Patch at Warminster Heights or at neighboring Bucks Landing Apartments generates reaction from readers that include comments calling the township to condemn the area. The construction of the Station Condos on Jacksonville and proposed renovations to the Warminster Heights community center may help the rejuvenation of the area's image.