New York City police are searching for multiple gunmen after three people were killed and at least nine were wounded in a mass shooting at a lounge in Brooklyn.
The NYPD said Sunday up to four shooters opened fire inside the crowded Taste of the City Lounge at 903 Franklin Ave. in the Crown Heights neighborhood overnight in what appears to be gang-related violence.
Multiple shooting victims found inside Brooklyn lounge
NYC Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said officers found multiple shooting victims inside the lounge after several 911 calls came in shortly before 3:30 a.m. Sunday.
She said it is believed the gunmen started firing at people during a dispute.
Three men were pronounced dead and nine people were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, Tisch said. The victims include nine men and three women, whose ages range from 19 to 61 years old, she added.
The three men killed have been identified as 19-year-old Marvin St. Louis, 27-year-old Amadou Diallo and 35-year-old Jamel Childs.
Officers recovered at least 42 shell casings from what appeared to be multiple guns inside the lounge, Tisch said.
Police also discovered a gun near Bedford Avenue and Eastern Parkway, but it was not immediately clear if the firearm was part of the lounge shooting.
Investigators were trying to find surveillance video of the incident and, so far, have not made any arrests.
Mayor asks witnesses to come forward
Mayor Eric Adams urged anyone with information about the Brooklyn shooting to come forward by calling the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers hotline.
“If you were inside the club, if you heard individuals talking about this shooting, if you witnessed someone fleeing the location. Every piece of information will allow us to put the puzzle together to solve this crime,” Adams said late Sunday morning.
For tips in English, the hotline is 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). For tips in Spanish, call 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
As the investigation continues, it’s still being determined whether or not the Taste of the City Lounge will remain open.
“We’re going to find out were any searches in place, and we’re going to allow anyone from the building department to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to the police department all to come together to determine what should be the next step with the lounge,” Adams said.
Taste of the City Lounge released a statement on Instagram saying, in part, “The safety and well-being of our guests and community has always been our top priority. We are working closely with law enforcement.”
The mayor noted this was the city’s second deadly mass shooting in less than three weeks. Another gunman stormed a Midtown Manhattan office building on July 28 and killed four people before turning the gun on himself.
Anti-violence groups say they need more funding to help communities
Despite the recent events, Tisch said gun violence is down this year across the five boroughs.
“We have the lowest number of shooting incidents and shooting victims seven months into the year that we’ve seen on record in the city of New York. Something like this is, thank God, an anomaly and it’s a terrible thing that happened this morning. But we’re going to investigate and get to the bottom of what went down,” Tisch said.
The NYPD says about 60% of the city’s shootings are gang-related.
The city is now mobilizing its mass shooting plan, deploying crisis management partners to prevent retaliatory shootings.
The anti-violence group Elite Learners came out Sunday after learning of the shooting.
“Our numbers for gun violence are down, but this is traumatic,” Elite Learners founder and executive director Camara Jackson said.
They say more funding is needed to get them on the street seven days a week.
“We need the NYPD budget,” Jackson said. “Public safety is a community effort, but when you look at the New York City crisis management system and you look at NYPD, we don’t come close.”
“I’ve been doing a lot of advocacy work with State Senator Zellnor Myrie and State Assemblymember Monique Chandler Waterman around legislation that they’re both holding to change the definition of mass shootings so that more resources can pull down from both the state and federal government,” New York City Council Member Crystal Hudson said.
There was also a mobile trauma response unit providing mental health services, along with the nonprofit Brownsville Think Tank Matters.
“We all have our own trauma. We don’t know what everybody been through, so this right here can spark up something that may have happened in their past,” said Derrick Adams, a violence interrupter with Brownsville Think Tank Matters.
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