There were candles in Williamsburg Monday night. There were candles and collages, and a grief so deep only the strength of a community could salve its shocking wounds.
On November 11th, a friend and former band member shot and killed three members of the post punk rock band "Yellow Dog".
Siavash Karampour and Koory Mirzeai weren't home when a gunman opened fire at their Brooklyn row house.
But fellow band members Arash and Soroush Farazmand were shot to death, along with their roommate Ali Eskandarian, by an ex-member of another Iranian band, the "Free Keys", police said.
The gunman then shot himself on the roof.
The group of young Iranian immigrants came to the United States for the artistic freedom they could not practice at home, and they embraced that freedom and thrived in the bohemian Williamsburg art scene.
Fellow musicians held a benefit concert Monday night for the families of the three men.
"Yellow Dog's" videos played on TVs, and friends, in Farsi and English, wrote of better times and of bitter loss.
The band says they were working on new material, and their future was bright.
"For now, it's impossible to even manage a future without our friends, and no explanation can make sense or begin to justify what has happened in our lives," Karampour and Mirzeai said in a statement. "To say we are heartbroken does not come close...These are they darkest hours of our lives. We are in shock, awe, blinded with rage and paralyzed with grief."
Gunman Ali Akbar Mohammadi Rafie, 29, was carrying about 100 rounds of ammunition in five magazines when he set out on the bloody rampage through the apartment, police said.
