‘Great’ Brooklyn grandmother struck by stray bullet outside grocery store remains ‘in pain,’ cousin laments
A 70-year-old Brooklyn grandmother is suffering after being struck by a stray bullet outside her local grocery store, her worried cousin told the Daily News on Tuesday.
“She’s in pain,” said victim Marilyn Hunte’s cousin, who would only identify herself as Miss Johnson. “Trying to move around is painful. She’s a great person. She’s easygoing. She doesn’t bother anybody.”
Hunte was exiting a Super Foodtown at the corner of Fulton St. and Tompkins Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant around 2:20 p.m. Monday, cops said.
The shooter was leaving a bodega down the block around the same time, surveillance video obtained by the Daily News shows.
He walked backwards out of the store and appeared to pull a gun out of his waistband, sending another man ducking back inside, the video shows.
The man who appears to be the intended target walks out and the two men exchange words. The men chase each other into the street before the shooter gets on a blue moped and takes off.
Off camera, he fires off shots, one of which travels about 200 feet before hitting Hunte on the corner near the supermarket.
The intended target got into a black car and drove away while Hunte was bent over in pain as two people stood with her, presumably calling for help, video shows.
“She said she felt a hit on her thigh and (then) she heard the shot,” the cousin said. “She wasn’t even aware that there had been an argument across the street.”
Police early Tuesday released surveillance images of the gunman, who was wearing a red-white-and blue jacket when he opened fire at his rival. They also released footage of the intended target, whom cops would like to question.
Hunte “went to the supermarket, got her stuff and came out” before she was struck in the right thigh, said the cousin, who is also 70. “(The shooter) didn’t deliberately do it … as far as we know, they weren’t after her.”
Johnson spent her Tuesday getting medicine and running errands for her wounded cousin.
Hunte has lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant “quite a few years,” but nothing like this has happened to her before, her cousin said.
Now, her cousin is “adjusting” to the random violence that’s erupting all over the city, she said.
“They’re knocking old people over the head for no reason, throwing people on tracks for no reason. I mean, I don’t know what’s coming over the city where people feel like they have to do these things,” the relative said. “You can be a random victim like all these other people. Something has to be done!”
Cops ask anyone with information about the shooter to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
