Cuomo aide still critical; video of NYC shooting suspects aired

By Katie Reilly

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A top aide to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo who was wounded by a stray bullet on Monday is still in critical condition, officials said on Saturday, after police released surveillance video of two armed suspects fleeing the scene of the shooting.

The video, released late Friday as detectives seek to identify the suspects, shows two men apparently armed with handguns running into a building in Brooklyn, where the shooting occurred.

Carey Gabay, 43, was struck in the head at a pre-dawn outdoor celebration on Monday before the annual West Indian Day parade, which has been plagued by violence in recent years. He is believed to have been an unintended target, police said.

Gabay, the first deputy counsel at Empire State Development, the state's chief economic development agency, remains in critical condition in an induced coma at Kings County Hospital Center, according to a Cuomo spokesman.

Gabay is a Harvard-educated lawyer who was raised in a public housing project in the Bronx. He became an assistant counsel for Cuomo in 2011 after working in finance.

Earlier this week, police released a sketch of a suspect who is wanted for questioning in connection with the shooting. The suspect was described as a 19- to 20-year-old black man wearing a white T-shirt, black pants and a Jamaican flag around his neck.

The shooting led Cuomo to call this week for national gun control policies, saying New York's firearm restrictions are ineffective on their own.

(Reporting by Katie Reilly; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Eric Walsh)