But Franklin Manuel Santana was new to the block. He, his wife and their newborn daughter moved from Miami to their first-floor apartment on Torresdale Avenue near Magee just a month ago.
So when Santana knocked on Harris' door late Tuesday afternoon to talk about the poo problem, he went unarmed - and unsuspecting.
Frances Fogarty, walking to the ShopRite to get T-bone steaks for Valentine's Day dinner, witnessed what happened next.
"Frank was calm, polite," Fogarty, 45, said yesterday. "He said: 'I'm just asking you, please keep your dog off my lawn. If I have to come back here, there's gonna be a problem.'
"Tyrirk said, 'Oh, is that a threat?' And then Tyrirk just pulled out the gun and shot him in the face. Then he stood over him and let out all the rest of the rounds, maybe nine or 10 more."
Fogarty's boyfriend had tackled her to the sidewalk out of the potential path of any stray bullets. But Fogarty couldn't keep her eyes off the gunman. As Santana sagged lifeless, Harris stalked around the porch for a few seconds.
"He looked around to see if anybody saw him, and then he went back upstairs. That's what I call cold," Fogarty said. Paramedics declared Santana, who would have turned 48 on Saturday, dead at 4:25 p.m. Harris, charged with murder and gun offenses, faces a preliminary hearing Feb. 29.
In a city with countless tales of murder of questionable motive, Santana's slaying stunned even lifelong residents and seasoned cops.
"He lost his life over taking pride in his lawn. A little girl is going to grow up without her daddy over this," said neighbor Jessica Hill, who sat with Santana's wife, Raquel, yesterday as she waited for her husband's relatives to arrive from his native Yonkers, N.Y.
Raquel sobbed as she tried to make sense of something so senseless.
