Tuesday, December 31, 2013
NEW YORK (AP) — Five men heading to a party were shot and a woman apparently was pistol-whipped, police and a community advocate said today, marking a year-end outburst of violence in a Brooklyn neighborhood that has struggled with crime even as it hit record lows.
Police were looking for a suspect or suspects in the gunfire, which erupted just after midnight at a building in the Howard Houses public housing complex in Brownsville.
Residents of a sixth-floor apartment had organized a party and spread the word on Facebook, said Tony Herbert, a community activist who said he had spoken to some of the guests and those injured.
Some people who'd had previous conflicts with the party crowd showed up outside the building, and bullets flew in the lobby as the teenage victims tried to run back inside, Herbert said.
Some residents heard two quick shots, then several more, he said.
The injured were taken to hospitals, the men with wounds to their legs and feet and the woman with cuts to her head, according to police and firefighters, who didn't release the patients' names. Police said all were expected to survive.