Five people were shot — including a 6-year-old boy — in Brooklyn early Monday during an outdoor J’Ouvert celebration, police and witnesses said.
According to New York Post,the gunfire rang out just before 3 a.m. at the corner of Nostrand Avenue and Crown Street in Crown Heights, where about 300 people had gathered for a pre-dawn West Indian Day celebration.
“It was really crazy — everyone was in shock,” said Joshua Kristal, who was marching with the procession.
Police sources identified the victims as Maxwell Cesc-Vinho, 6, his mother, Patricia Brathwaith, 47, Flavian Yves, 40, Bob Charlotin, 46, and Kelly Barthold, 34.
Brathwaith — who has an address in a Crown Street apartment building right where the shooting occurred — and Yves were each shot in the left foot, while Charlotin and Barthold were both blasted in the right leg.
All five victims were taken to Kings County Hospital Center with non-life-threatening injuries, according to police.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison said the mother and son were just getting out of a cab when they were shot.
The little boy was in surgery Monday morning, police sources said.
Harrison said the shooting appeared to be gang-related.
“It looks like, it’s unfortunate, a gang-related shooting,” he told reporters at the scene Monday morning. “This is a notorious gang area that, you know, we’ve had problems with in the past.”
It wasn’t immediately clear which of the victims, if any, were intended targets.
The official J’Ouvert and the West Indian Day events have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, but revelers decided to gather in the early hours anyway.
Harrison said many residents took to barbecuing and playing music outside instead.
“We actually promote that,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that people should come out and start shooting.”
