Two policemen were wounded in a gun battle that capped off a terrifying spate of shootings that killed three and marred Brooklyn’s West Indian Day Parade on Monday, the New York Daily News has reported.
According to the report the surge of violence wounded eight and put the number of people shot over the weekend around New York City to at least 48, including two people who were killed on Sunday night.
The Daily News said that the violence during the holiday weekend culminated in a deadly shootout about 9 pm on Monday on Park Place in Crown Heights, when Leroy Webster, 32, shot Eusi Johnson, 29, to death after they had a fistfight, police said.
A stray bullet from Webster’s pistol pierced the head of 56-year-old Denise Gay, who was sitting on her front step nearby with her daughter, police said. Gay was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police arrived and Webster began firing at officers, who shot the gun-wielding man several times.
“There must have been 50 or 60 shots fired,” said witness Dana Kellstrom, 25. “I saw two people shot down on the ground. It was incredible. I ran for my life,” the woman told the newspaper.
Two officers were hit during the gunfight, police said.
A bullet grazed the left arm of Police Officer Avichaim Dicken, who was taken to Methodist Hospital. Officer Omar Medina, 36, was hit in the left arm and chest, police said.
Earlier, another man died during J’Ouvert, the traditional predawn celebration leading up to the parade, when bullets struck four men at an East Flatbush barbecue at about 12.45 am.
Tyrief Gary, 18, was blasted in the chest at the cookout on E. 54th Street. Three other men – ages 30, 29 and 26 – were wounded in the barrage, police said. The four were taken to Kings County Hospital, where Gary later died. The others were in stable condition.
The report said that more violence took place once the parade got underway.
Two men were shot at Eastern Parkway near Rochester Avenue on the sidelines of the massive celebration about 2.30 pm. One man was shot in the abdomen and the other in the lower back after they got into a scuffle with the shooter. The gunman fled into the panicked crowd.
About a dozen blocks west on Eastern Parkway, the parade’s main thoroughfare, near Rogers Avenue, a man was shot in the leg about 5 pm and taken to Kings County Hospital.
And around 6 pm, a 27-year-old man was stabbed in the back on Rutland Road and Bedford Avenue, officials said. He was also taken to Kings County Hospital.
At about the same time, a man was shot in the arm on Park Place a few blocks from the route, officials said.
And yet another gunman fired off rounds a few blocks from the parade route, at E. 94th Street and Winthrop Avenue, around noon, police said. The shooter was arrested and no one was hit.
