Man Shot Dead While Pumping Gas In Crown Heights, Brooklyn
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A man was shot and killed in broad daylight while pumping gas in Brooklyn.
The 46-year-old victim was refueling a white pickup truck at the BP gas station on Atlantic Avenue in Crown Heights when he was shot in the chest around noon Saturday, police said.
The station's clerk told CBS2's Erin Logan the man paid $40 for gas, then asked to use the bathroom.
"I just can't wrap my head around it," he said. "I gave him the key, he used the restroom, and went back there. He put the nozzle in to get the gas."
The clerk said the man went around to the passenger side door. Then, two men came running right up to him.
"I just saw that the bullet went through his right chest," he said. "It was a big hole."
The victim collapsed and the suspects took off running.
"It's just too much, especially in the daylight conditions like that. I mean, come on, 12 p.m.?" the clerk said.
The man was rushed to NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County in critical condition where he was later pronounced dead.
Walking by the crime scene did not come as a surprise for Chris DiMarco.
"I have an app called Citizen, and it gives you an alert of anything that happens in your neighborhood," he told CBS2's Erin Logan.
But hearing more about what happened DiMarco said, "crazy, I didn't know that anyone was killed."
"Stuff like that happens around here. I guess because poverty, and there's a lot of that kind of culture or whatever that breeds here," he said. "It sucks."
Investigators were still searching for the two male suspects late Saturday night.
It wasn't immediately known whether or not the victim, whose name is being withheld pending family notification, was the intended target.
Police sources told CBS2 it may have been a botched robbery.
"I guess I kind of do feel a little unsafe to be honest. I just try to stay not around things that happened, but I don't know how to do that if something random happens," DiMarco said.
Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74682). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577.