An apparent gang dispute turned deadly when gunfire erupted at a busy downtown Brooklyn intersection last night. An 18-year-old was shot in the ankle while a 16-year-old was fatally shot in the head.
According to the NYPD, officers responded to the shooting near Flatbush Avenue Extension and Dekalb Avenue, in front of the Applebee's and across the street from Long Island University, just after 6 p.m. Sources told the NY Post the shooting stemmed from a "turf war between an East New York crew and a Fort Greene crew."
Witnesses told NBC 4 New York "a group of teens had gotten into a fight down the block outside McDonald's, and the chaos drifted toward Applebee's, where roughly 10 gunshots were fired. Cellphone [video] shows a large group of young people stampeding down the sidewalk, then suddenly turning back and running in the other direction, presumably when the gunshots were fired. One of the teens limps on one foot as he runs back."
The 16-year-old victim, identified as Armani Hankins of Queens, was pronounced dead at Brooklyn Hospital. According to the Daily News, extra police were dispatched to the crime scene to control a gathering crowd. "He died! Don't tell me died!" one man reportedly screamed, while one woman sobbed, 'Don't tell me my boyfriend is dead. How am I supposed to love someone else?"
A relative of Hankins told the News that she recently moved to Brooklyn from the Bronx: "I’ve been back in Brooklyn for two months and this is the fifth young man that got shot down that I know. Come on, this has got to stop. It’s too much."
