Boy, 15, killed in Brooklyn park shooting near his school: ‘I don’t understand why this would happen’

Ellen Moynihan, Rocco Parascandola, Elizabeth Keogh, New York Daily News
·2 min read

A 15-year-old boy was killed Wednesday when a masked gunman opened fire on him in a Brooklyn park, according to police.

The teen had just been dismissed from Brooklyn Laboratory Charter Schools at 1:30 p.m. and made his way about two blocks to McLaughlin Park in Downtown Brooklyn, said NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig.

The youth was sitting on a park bench at Cathedral Pl. near Jay St. with two girls when a pair of high school-aged boys approached him and started an argument, police said. The three teens got into a fist fight.

One of the antagonists, wearing all black with a black ski mask, pulled out a gun and shot the victim once in the abdomen.

“I was working and I heard a big boom noise,” said Shaquanna Thompson, 28. “I thought it was a truck, when they hit a pothole.”

The teen was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where he died, police said. He lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

The shooter and an accomplice, wearing a gray hoodie and a ski mask, fled eastbound on Tillary St. toward Adams St., cops said.

“I was outside with my friend and we had heard a loud bang,” said Dee Thomas, a City Tech student. “We walked over here and we saw him lying on the ground.”

At least 30 people were in the park at the time. Children there scattered, leaving the teen bleeding on the ground, Thomas said.

Police on the scene performed CPR until the ambulance arrived, witnesses said.

“He was not moving,” said Thomas. “It was really life-changing.”

The teen’s shaken family worked to make sense of the shooting Wednesday evening.

“This is a really good neighborhood,” said Kiera Smith, 20, who identified herself as the boy’s sister. “We live in a nice place. I don’t understand why this would happen.”

She was in a bodega when she got the call that her brother had died. She collapsed in her boyfriend’s arms.

“Oh my gosh! God, why did you take my baby?” she screamed as neighbors came to hug and try to console her.

Police are interviewing the two girls the victim was sitting with and investigating if the incident stemmed from an argument at school.

As kids go back to school, NYPD precinct commanders have “robust school pans” to ensure safety, particularly at dismissals, Essig said at a news conference.

“We see violence ... it’s always a concern, the return to school,” he said. “We see the shooting victims, shooting perpetrators, younger and younger and it’s of great concern to us.”