Two cops shot in Brooklyn gun battle, caps terror-filled NYC Labor Day weekend of shootings
Kerry Burke, Irving Dejohn, Edgar Sandoval and Barry Paddock, DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Two cops were wounded in a gun battle Monday night, capping off a terrifying spate of shootings that left four people dead - one a bystander - and marred Brooklyn's West Indian Day Parade.
The surge of violence wounded eight and put the number of people shot over the weekend around the city to at least 48, including two people who were killed Sunday night. It came the same day the Daily News reported that 24 people were shot in the 24-hour period beginning 6 a.m. Saturday.
The violence during the holiday weekend culminated in a deadly shootout about 9 p.m. Monday on Park Place in Crown Heights, when Leroy Webster, 32, shot Eusi Johnson, 29, to death after they had a fistfight, cops said.
A stray bullet from Webster's pistol pierced through the head of 56-year-old Denise Gay, who was sitting on her front stoop nearby with her daughter, cops said. Gay was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police arrived and Webster began firing at officers, who shot the gun-wielding man several times, mortally wounding him, sources said.
"There must have been 50 or 60 shots fired," said witness Dana Kellstrom, 25. "I saw two people shot down on the ground. It was incredible. I ran for my life."
Two officers were hit during the gunfight, cops said. A bullet grazed the left arm of Police Officer Avichaim Dicken, who was taken to Methodist Hospital. Officer Omar Medina, 36, was hit in the left arm and chest, police said.
He was in stable condition at Brookdale University Hospital. Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly visited both officers Monday night.
"It was a senseless murder and another painful reminder of of how federal officials fail to take the problem of gun violence seriously," Bloomberg said of Gay's death. "It is a matter of life and death and in this case, the death was of an innocent New Yorker."
Earlier, another man died during J'Ouvert, the traditional predawn celebration leading up to the parade, when bullets struck four men at an East Flatbush barbecue about 12:45 a.m.
Tyrief Gary, 18, was blasted in the chest at the cookout on E. 54th St. Three other men - ages 30, 29 and 26 - were wounded in the barrage, police said. The four were taken to Kings County Hospital, where Gary later died. The others were in stable condition.
"He was only 18," said Dimitry Foster, 18, who went to junior high school with Gary. "He was a good guy. This is shocking."
More violence took place once the parade got underway.
Two men were shot at Eastern Parkway near Rochester Ave. on the sidelines of the massive celebration about 2:30 p.m., police said.
One man was shot in the abdomen and the other in the lower back after they got into a scuffle with the shooter. Both were expected to survive, sources said.
The gunman fled into the panicked crowd.
"Everyone started running," said witness William Long. "I saw people knocking the barricades over."
About a dozen blocks west on Eastern Parkway, the parade's main thoroughfare, near Rogers Ave., a man was shot in the leg about 5 p.m. and taken to Kings County Hospital, officials said.
"He pulled it out and fired off two shots," parade-goer Pauline Mash, 29, said of the gunman. "The crowd just went wild running."
Around 6 p.m., a 27-year-old man was stabbed in the back on Rutland Road and Bedford Ave., officials said. He was taken to Kings Country Hospital.
"There were thousands of people out here," said Jerome Philip, 69, who witnessed the stabbing. "It was shoulder to shoulder out here. They couldn't get an ambulance in so they had to wheel him down the block."
At about the same time, a man was shot in the arm on Park Place a few blocks from the route, officials said.
Yet another gunman fired off rounds a few blocks from the parade route, at E. 94th St. and Winthrop Ave., around noon, police said. The shooter was arrested and no one was hit.
The parade-related shootings came after the mayor on Sunday called the weekend's surge in violence "unconscionable."
Among other shootings citywide over the weekend:
* A 15-year-old boy was shot in the arm in a courtyard of the Kingsborough Houses near Dean St. and Ralph Ave. around 6:25 p.m. He was rushed to Kings County Hospital.
* A 33-year-old man was shot in the abdomen on W. 127th St. in Harlem about 11:45 a.m. Monday and rushed to Harlem Hospital, cops said. His injuries were not life-threatening.
* A 44-year-old man was shot in the right leg at Empire Blvd. and Mckeever Pl. in Brooklyn about 6 a.m. Monday, cops said. He was taken to Kings County Hospital in stable condition.
* A man was shot in the torso at Linden Boulevard and Nostrand Ave. in Flatbush, Brooklyn, about 4:20 a.m., cops said. The man, whose name and age were not immediately released, was rushed to Kings County Hospital in very critical condition.
* Two men were shot in the abdomen about 6:40 p.m. Sunday in front of the Marcy Houses on Nostrand Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, cops said. Kenya McCollum, 26, who lived in the Marcy Houses, was rushed to Woodhull Hospital, where he died. The other victim, a 22-year-old man, was in stable condition at Kings County Hospital.
* A 24-year-old man was shot in the head in front of the Unity Plaza Houses on Blake Ave. in Brownsville, Brooklyn, about 10 p.m. Sunday, cops said. Donavan Dallison, of Crown Heights, died at the scene.
* A man was shot in the chest near Second Ave. and E. 99th St. in Manhattan just before midnight Sunday night, cops said. His injuries were not life-threatening.
Police spokesmen said they were unaware of any arrests in the shootings.
* A 17-year-old boy was shot in the leg at E. 167th St. and Washington Ave. in Morrisania, Bronx, about 6:15 p.m. Sunday. He was taken to Lincoln Hospital in stable condition.
* A man was shot in his foot in the Whitman Houses in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, about 1 p.m. Sunday, officials said. He was taken to Kings County Hospital in stable condition.
* A woman was shot in her lower back on South Road near Sutphin Blvd. in Jamaica, Queens, about 9 a.m. Sunday. She was in stable condition at Jamaica Hospital Monday.
With Irving DeJohn and Edgar Sandoval
bpaddock@nydailynews.com
