Brooklyn boy, 12, seated in van with mom fatally shot in head amid horrific gun fight
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: A 12-year-old boy was shot dead in Brooklyn on Thursday night, March 31, while he was sitting in a parked minivan with his mother and another girl, 8, possibly his sibling. The woman sitting inside the vehicle, who is being reported as his mother, was also shot when gunfire erupted on East 56 Street and Linden Boulevard in East Flatbush just after 7:45 pm.
The boy was shot in the chest and head. He was rushed to Kings County Hospital but he succumbed to his injuries. “I saw the victim in the car, he wasn’t moving,” a witness, who identified herself only as Kinmiko, told New York Post. The mother, 20, was hit in the right cheek and the upper left leg, and was also taken to Kings County hospital. Sources said that she is expected to survive. A girl who was also sitting in the backseat of the car escaped the tragedy unscathed. It is unclear if the shooters targeted the victims.
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After the shooting, two cars, including a black Infiniti sedan, were seeing fleeing the scene. Investigators believe there is a possibility that people in both the vehicles were firing at each other. A witness said that the suspects almost caused a car accident while fleeing.
“I heard eight shots and I would say within 20 seconds of the shots, I saw a car on the corner facing East New York Avenue … and they almost got into an accident with oncoming traffic,” one witness at the scene said. The witness said that the suspects appeared to be young. At least 11 rounds were fired.
Rhonda White, 59, who lives two blocks from where the shooting took place, she “had a bad feeling that something real had gone down” after she heard gunshots.“Now I’m hearing that a child has been killed. I have lived in Brooklyn all my life and I thought we were past this sort of thing. But it’s déjà vu. There’s constant fear. The evil has come back to the city,” said White.
A woman, 45, who only identified as Renee, said that the child's death devastated her. “Every time you hear shots in this neighborhood you hope and pray that this won’t be the one. Well, this time it was the one. I’m in mourning over that poor child. This is what hurts the most, when it’s just a baby who never did anyone any harm. How much more bloodshed before it stops?“ she said.