A guy opened fire into the audience during the West Indian American Day festival procession in Brooklyn, New York, on Monday, resulting in five gunshot wounds, two of whom are critically injured.
At a press conference following the shooting, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell stated, “One person intentionally going after a group of people tried to ruin the day for everybody, and we’re not going to let that happen”
He claimed that two of the victims were in serious condition and three were likely to survive. Four of the casualties were men and one was a woman.
According to Chell, the parade was still going on and there was no active shooter.
“We have multiple cops working very hard this weekend, very hard today to keep this community and to keep this parade safe, and we’ll be out here until the wee hours of the morning doing just that. Working hard, keeping this community safe.”
Chell described the suspect as a skinny Black man in his 20s wearing a black shirt stained with paint and a black bandanna. The police are still looking for him.
Police think the shooting was “not random,” according to Chell, however they are unsure of the shooter’s motivation.
The celebration honors “Caribbean heritage and culture,” and thousands of people were gathered along the parade route on Monday, according to the city.
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“I’m crying over this, it’s so terrible. How can someone have the heart to fire a gun around so many people — babies, children, the elderly,” witness Jalissa Bailey stated to New York Post.
“I know this parade has a history of violence, but things have been peaceful in recent years, and we got to hoping that there was enough security in place that maybe that was over with,” she continued.
