An 18-year-old man is dead and 4 other men are injured, including one very critically, after a shooting in Brooklyn late Wednesday night, police said.
The men, all 21 years old or younger, were outside an apartment building on Bristol Street, between Dumont and Livonia avenues, in Brownsville, just before midnight when shots rang out.
Assistant Chief Jeffrey Maddrey, the commanding officer of Patrol Borough Brooklyn North, said the car involved pulled up “and opens fire on a crowd of young men and women who were standing in front of the building.”
The 18-year-old was shot in the stomach, police said. He was taken to the Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
A 21-year-old was shot in the head and was in critical condition at Brookdale.
Two other 21-year-olds, one shot in the leg, hip and hand, and the other shot in the hip and grazed in the eye, were in stable condition at NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County. The fifth man, who is 20, was shot in the foot and shoulder and taken to Brookdale in stable condition.
Moments after the shooting and very nearby, a dark Hyundai SUV was involved in a hit and run, said Deputy Chief Michael Kemper with the Detective Borough Brooklyn North.
“They said they were driving down the street and a car crashed into them and that car took off and drove away erratically,” he said. “I am confident that car was used by the people or person that is responsible for the shooting last night.”
Police later found the car parked and unoccupied, Kemper said, and took it into custody. Investigators are waiting on a search warrant to be issued for the car, he said.
He said more than 10 shots were fired at the time and while the motive remains unclear, “it very well could be” gang related.
There are no arrests and the investigation is ongoing.
Speaking to reporters in Brooklyn, Maddrey said while neighborhood policing is a focus of the department, “we’re not going to tolerate criminal activities.
“I want the community to rest assured that we’re going to put extra resources out here,” he said, adding those resources will include more uniformed officers on the street and some unmarked vehicles. “We want to engage positively with our community, we want to work to be a resource to our community. But I want to be clear: That anybody who believes that they’re going to come in our neighborhoods and engage in violence, in particular gun violence, we’re going to go after them.”
