Speaking at the funeral of Denise Gay, the 56-year-old Crown Heights woman who was killed by a stray bullet on her stoop, Reverend Al Sharpton issued a stern plea for the seemingly senseless violence to stop. "Somehow you must reach inside you and stand up for what's right." Gay may have been killed by one of the 73 bullets fired by NYPD officers in their attempt to subdue shooter Leroy Webster, who had killed Eusi Johnson around 9 p.m. on Labor Day. Ballistics results remain pending. According to the Daily News, Sharpton said, "Whatever the results of that investigation, there's no doubt you must stop shooting."
Police believe that Webster killed Johnson because the latter had a "slap fight" outside of his apartment building shortly after the West Indian Day Parade concluded. Two officers were wounded in the shootout, and after surveillance video of the fusillade was released, a spokesman for the NYPD admitted that one of their bullets could have hit Gay in the head. The bullet lodged in her head did not come from Webster's gun. Witnesses say that Johnson also had a firearm, but it was never found.
"She was a beautiful woman," one of Gay's neighbors said at the funeral, which featured a DJ and dancing, because "she would have wanted it that way." Councilwoman Letitia James attended, as did the Gay family's defense attorney Sanford Rubenstein. Whether or not they will file suit against the city and the NYPD is "still to be determined."
