NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) — A 51-year-old man was shot to death near the West Indian Day Parade route in Crown Heights on Monday night—violence that came hours after at least four people were shot, stabbed or slashed amid the festivities.
The 51-year-old victim was shot around 8:50 p.m. during a party outside a small construction site at Sterling Place and Schenectady Avenue.
NYPD officers responding to a 911 call found him with multiple gunshot wounds at the scene. He died at NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County.
Witnesses described a hail of bullets as the victim was gunned down.
“We just heard it—pow, pow, pow,” a woman said. “And then we saw running, people were running from all direction and the police is coming. People running in buildings, falling down on the block and all of that.”
Violence also erupted hours earlier around 5:30 p.m. as the parade was winding down at Eastern Parkway and Utica Avenue.
A fight between two groups erupted, leading to a 19-year-old man getting shot in the buttocks, police said.
A 20-year-old man was also stabbed in the leg, while a 16-year-old was slashed in the hand.
All three of them were hospitalized and were recovering.
A man also accidentally shot himself in the leg around 4:20 p.m. during a fight at Eastern Parkway and Franklin Avenue, according to the Daily News . He was hospitalized in stable condition.
At some point, a stray bullet also struck the windshield of an FDNY fire engine that was parked on Eastern Parkway. No firefighters were injured.
NYPD Chief of Patrol Chief John Chell described the police response to the violence, including the controversial use of drones to monitor the celebrations from above.
“We pull this drone out, we take some cops up here,” Chell said. “We clear the corner, and now we’re much safer than we were an hour ago. And that’s the name of the game.”
No arrests were immediately reported in the violence.
