Two women were shot in separate incidents along the West Indian Day Parade route in Brooklyn on Monday afternoon, deepening a violent start to the annual celebration.
The first shooting unfolded around 4 p.m. Near 798 Nostrand Avenue in Crown Heights, where a woman took a bullet to the leg, law-enforcement sources said. A witness named Edward described the moments leading up to the gunfire.
“There were a bunch of people fighting at the top of the block. … And then all of the sudden, you hear, ‘Pop, pop,'” Edward said.
Photographs from the scene showed officers taking an individual into custody in connection with the Nostrand Avenue shooting.
Minutes later and blocks away, a second woman was struck in the leg at the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Kingston Avenue, also in Crown Heights, according to sources. That shooting occurred just after 4 p.m., and police were still searching for the shooter as of Monday evening.
The twin shootings capped a morning already stained by bloodshed. Hours before the parade stepped off, four people were stabbed near Carroll Street and Utica Avenue in the same neighborhood, sources said.
The West Indian Day Parade and its predawn J’Ouvert celebration have long drawn massive crowds to Crown Heights and surrounding areas, but the festivities have also carried a persistent undercurrent of violence that has repeatedly marred the cultural event. Monday’s shootings extended that pattern into the afternoon hours, with both incidents unfolding along corridors packed with revelers.
The stabbings that preceded the gunfire erupted in the final hours before the main parade began, leaving four people wounded near Carroll Street and Utica Avenue. The proximity of the attacks — all clustered within the Crown Heights neighborhood that serves as the parade’s heart — underscored the security challenges that have shadowed the celebration for years.
Police did not immediately release the conditions of either shooting victim, nor did they identify any suspects beyond the individual detained at the Nostrand Avenue scene. The investigation into the Kingston Avenue shooting remained active Monday evening, with the shooter still at large.
The violence unfolded as the West Indian Day Parade, one of New York City’s largest cultural celebrations, drew thousands to Brooklyn’s streets for music, costumes and Caribbean heritage displays.
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