Three men, including a 19-year-old, were killed and nine others were injured early Sunday when a fight broke out inside a crowded New York City nightclub, resulting in a shooting that police said appeared to involve multiple gunmen firing dozens of rounds.
No one has been arrested in connection with the fatal incident, according to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who spoke at a noon news conference on Sunday, following an earlier press conference. According to Tisch, police are examining security footage and interviewing witnesses in an effort to identify the shooters.
Police identified the three victims as Jamel Childs (35), Amadou Diallo (27), and Marvin St. Louis (19).
Tisch stated that the shooting appears to be gang-related, but declined to elaborate, citing an ongoing investigation. She claimed that up to four gunmen opened fire inside the nightclub, injuring several bystanders.
The shooting occurred around 3:27 a.m. on Sunday inside the Taste of the City Lounge in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, which Tisch said was packed at the time.
The commissioner stated that officers arrived at the lounge on Franklin Avenue within minutes of the first 911 calls reporting the shooting and discovered a chaotic scene, with multiple victims ranging in age from 19 to 61 inside the nightclub suffering from gunshot wounds.
Tisch said two of the victims, a 27-year-old man and a 35-year-old man, were transported to hospitals and pronounced dead. She stated that the third fatality was a 19-year-old man who died on the scene. She said the surviving victims, three women and six men, were taken to hospitals with injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening.
“What we know preliminarily is there was a dispute inside a crowded club that led to the shooting,” says Tisch. “We have multiple shooters involved in this shooting.”
According to Tisch, investigators found at least 42 shell casings from 9mm and.45-caliber weapons inside the lounge.
According to Tisch, a firearm was recovered near Bedford Avenue and Eastern Parkway, and police are investigating whether it was involved in the shooting.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams requested the public’s assistance in bringing the perpetrators to justice.
“If you were inside the club, if you heard individuals talking about this shooting, if you witnessed someone fleeing the location, every piece of information would allow us to put the puzzle together to solve this crime,” Adams said in a written statement.
According to Tisch, the shooting occurred at a time when the NYPD had the fewest shootings on record in the first seven months of the year. According to NYPD citywide crime statistics as of August 10, the number of shooting victims has dropped by nearly 22% this year compared to the same period last year, while the number of shooting incidents has decreased by 20.5%.
“Something like this is, of course, thank God, an anomaly and it’s a terrible thing that happened this morning,” Tisch told the audience. “But we’re going to investigate it and get to the bottom of what went down.”
