A 32-year-old man was fatally shot in the head by a masked gunman in Brooklyn on Monday evening, the deadliest of at least four separate shootings that erupted across New York City in a violent overnight stretch.
Cleo Daniels, 32, was struck in the head around 8:30 p.m. On Bristol Street near Livonia Avenue, just steps from Betsy Head Park in Brownsville, cops and sources said. A group had gathered in the area when the mask-wearing suspect, also seen in a black hoodie, suddenly opened fire. Daniels was rushed to Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center, where he succumbed to his injuries.
The suspected shooter fled into the park and had not been caught by Tuesday, law enforcement sources said. The motive remained unclear, and it was not immediately known whether Daniels was targeted.
Daniels had been released on parole from state prison in March 2023 after serving more than four years on an attempted murder conviction, state correction records show.
Earlier that same evening, violence touched the West Indian Day Parade route in Crown Heights. A 24-year-old man was shot in the buttocks around 4 p.m. On Nostrand Avenue near St. Johns Place, police said. The suspect in that shooting, Nayshawn Wilkinson, 19, was arrested. Wilkinson was out on bail at the time, law enforcement sources said, following an earlier case in which he allegedly fired the bullet that wounded a 15-year-old boy in the foot in July.
Minutes later and blocks away, another man and a 37-year-old woman — dressed in an orange-and-gold feathered outfit — were shot at the intersection of Eastern Parkway and Kingston Avenue along the parade route, sources said. All three victims from the parade-area shootings were listed in stable condition.
The bloodshed continued late into the night in the Bronx. Around 11 p.m., a 65-year-old woman believed to be an innocent bystander was blasted in the leg on University Avenue near Merriam Avenue in the Highbridge neighborhood, cops and sources said. Two others were struck in that same shooting: a 43-year-old man who took a bullet to the head and a 52-year-old woman grazed in the leg, police said.
It was not immediately clear whether the man and younger woman were targeted. All three victims were hospitalized, with the man listed in critical condition and the two women considered stable, authorities said.
The Highbridge shooting may have stemmed from a drug-related beef, law enforcement sources said.
The overnight violence came just hours after the shootings near the West Indian Day Parade route, compounding a brutal start to the week across the city. No arrests had been made in the fatal Brownsville shooting or the late-night Bronx triple shooting by Tuesday.