A 17-year-old boy is dead, a 16-year-old companion critical after both were shot by a lone gunman as they walked on a quiet Brooklyn street in front of a daycare center Tuesday afternoon, police officials said.
The shooting is a continuation of what is believed to be gang violence that has wracked the city throughout the year.
Police from the 67th precinct received a call at 2:30 p.m. for two people shot in front of 436 East 26th Street, which happens to be the Heather’s Hand’s Child Care Center in Flatbush. Cops a 17-year-old shot twice, once in the head and in the torso, and a second boy 16, shot twice.
Both were rushed by EMS to Kings County Hospital, where the 17-year-old was pronounced dead on arrival. The second teen was in stable condition.
A third teen was with them but was not hit in the shooting. Investigators say they are looking for a heavy set Hispanic man, wearing all black including a black ski mask who fled east on Newkirk Avenue.
Police found a handgun at the scene of the shooting, but could not say at this time whether it was the murder weapons. Spent shells also littered the blood-splattered sidewalk.
“It’s just really traumatic,” said one woman who watched from her home. “People were screaming and I told the boy to put pressure on the wound. It was just so traumatic.”
Another man said he and his family heard the shots that “sounded like firecrackers.”
“We heard the shots, but we are always hearing firecrackers so we didn’t think it was anything, but then we heard screaming,” said Asman Mohammed. “We never see anything like this over here. But yes, it’s been a lot of shootings in the neighborhood and that’s scary.”
Published reports say this may have been an attempted robbery, though it may have been targeted at the 17-year-old.
Only the night before, six people were shot city-wide, two of them dead. Last week, nearly 50 people were shot in citywide shootings. Detectives believe much of it was gang-related warfare.
Anyone with information in regard to any of these shootings is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM, on Twitter @NYPDTips. All calls are strictly confidential.
