One-Year-Old Boy Fatally Shot In Bed-Stuy During Family Barbecue

A one-year-old boy was fatally shot during a family barbecue in Bed-Stuy Sunday evening.

The baby, Davell Gardner Jr., was shot in the stomach during the cookout near the Raymond Bush Playground at around 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, according to an NYPD spokesperson.

Gardner, who lived in Brownsville and was known as Junior to his family, was transported to Maimonides Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

The NYPD is still investigating the motive behind the shooting. There was no prior dispute before violence broke out. Two men came up to the group and began shooting, according to the spokesperson. No arrests have been made.

Three others were injured during the shooting, including a 36-year-old man who was shot in the leg, a 35-year-old man who was shot in the groin, and a 27-year-old who was shot in the ankle. All the other victims are expected to survive.

On Monday morning, the NYPD had taped off the area where the family had been sitting on Madison Street near Marcus Garvey Boulevard. A bicycle, chairs, and the child's stroller and blue blanket remained at the scene.

"We was barbecuing over there—all my stuff is still over there," Jackie Gordon, the boy's great aunt, said in tears on her stoop across from the playground where she says Junior was shot while sitting in his stroller. "Next thing I know, I heard someone shooting, so I thought it was fire crackers as usual. But then I noticed people running. Before I could get up over here, my nephew was shot over there."

Gordon's two adult sons were among those injured. One is still hospitalized, but is doing okay. Gordon said that memories of Junior splashing in a small pool she bought for him earlier in the day on Sunday replayed in her mind.

"I just want people to find them—who did that to him," Gordon said. "That's all I want to know: who did it."

"The baby was with his family enjoying a Sunday night in the Summer when someone started shooting," the NYPD Chief of Community Affairs Jeffrey Maddrey said in a tweet. "We as a community, we as a police department denounce this disgusting violence."

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea added, "These are very real people affected by senseless gun violence."

"To wake up this morning and learn that a one-year-old child was killed on the streets of our city by gunfire is just so painful," Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a Monday morning press conference. "It's not acceptable. It's not something we can ever look away from, it's something we have to address and stop and it's just horrifying."

A building super on the block, Wilson Feliz, said, "This park over here has always been trouble."

"It doesn't surprise me that this happened. It's been happening for a long time already—gun violence, drugs, and everything else," Feliz said.

The playground is located in the 79th Precinct, which saw three more shooting victims compared to this time last year, from 22 to 25, according to the precinct's latest crime stats through July 5th. There were 22 shooting incidents through July 5th, up from 18 last year, the stats say. Murders were down from 7 to 4 in the 79th.

At least two other young people were killed in gun violence in New York City over the weekend.

About 7:45 p.m. on Friday, an 18-year-old man was shot in the torso in front of 100 New Jersey Avenue in Cyprus Hills, according to police. No arrests have been made, and the victim's identification hasn't been released.

And just before 3 a.m. on Monday morning, a 20-year-old man was fatally shot in the lobby of 872 Williams Avenue in East New York, according to an NYPD release. Nobody has been arrested and his name hasn't been released.

According to the Post, in two separate incidents over the weekend, a 12-year-old was shot in the leg in Crown Heights and a 15-year-old was shot in the wrist in Harlem.

Between July 10th and July 12th, there were 28 shooting incidents and 35 victims, compared to five incidents and six victims the same time period last year, according to NYPD data.

Through July 12th, there have been 202 homicides, compared to 164 through July 12th last year—19 percent higher. Shooting incidents are up from 394 to 634, or 38 percent higher, and shooting victims have risen from 456 to 777, or 41 percent.

Shootings have soared across the city in recent weeks in the midst of a global health crisis, with COVID-19 causing mass unemployment. The NYPD's top cops, including Commissioner Shea, have blamed bail reform and early releases from Rikers Island due to the coronavirus for the rise in shootings, but early data shows their claims are baseless.

In response to the shootings—which jumped 130 percent in June compared to last June, from 89 to 205 shooting incidents—de Blasio rolled out a gun violence prevention effort in Harlem with violence interrupters in a "take-back-the-block effort," as he described it.