Cops are still searching for the individual who shot four teens Wednesday afternoon from a Crown Heights rooftop. And in the aftermath of the shooting—which sent pedestrians running for their lives—many in the neighborhood were gripped with fear over the city's surge in violent crime. But others thought it was funny, like the teens seen laughing after they got shot!
Theodora Mompoint, a 15-year-old freshman at Clara Barton, tells the Times she recognized one of the victims from school: "He was putting out his gang signs when he got into the ambulance, and he was laughing." (This corroborates what a local resident told Channel 11 Wednesday: "One was in the wheelchair, he was laughing and talking. Another was in a stretcher smiling and talking. Like it was no big deal. Young people, you know how they are.")
Police sources say three 17-year-old victims had a history of arrests on a variety of robbery, gun and marijuana possession charges. One was hit in the torso and is listed in stable condition; another was treated and released for gunshot wounds to the buttocks and left calf. Another 17-year-old was grazed in the forearm but refused treatment. And a 15-year-old boy shot in both ankles was also treated and released. "They all was black, young, from the neighborhood," area man Grapes Ferguson, who knew some of the victims, tells the Times. "It’s basically people who had wars for years. It’s not really a bad neighborhood. It’s just testosterone."
Boys will be boys, right? But with NYC homicides up 22 percent and shootings up 14 percent, compared with the first three months of last year, some New Yorkers are frightened. "Easter, and then this thing; I’m scared," said accountant John Sesay as he used bleach to clean off the blood in his shop, which was left behind by two of the victims. "Very, very scared." Take heart, Sesay, yesterday Mayor Bloomberg ruled out any layoffs in the NYPD next year.
