Man Dies After Shooting On MTA Bus In Bedford-Stuyvesant
UPDATED 03/21/14 12:16 a.m.
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A man is dead after being shot Thursday evening on a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn.
The 39-year-old man was shot on a B15 bus at Greene Avenue and Marcus Garvey Boulevard, sources told CBS 2. He was wounded once in the head. The bus driver reported the shooting at 6:22 p.m., the MTA said.
The victim was initially reported in critical condition at Woodhull Medical Center Thursday night. Police said he later died.
He was identified Thursday night as Angel Rojas of Brooklyn.
A 14-year-old boy was taken into police custody after the shooting. Sources said police alleged the boy got on the bus for the purpose of shooting someone, but the man who was killed was not the intended target.
As CBS 2's Lou Young reported, the city bus remained at the scene behind police tape hours after the shooting.
One man named Harold told 1010 WINS' Gary Baumgarten he heard the shots fired.
"I work right here in the supermarket. There was four or five shots. It sounded like a cannon – like somebody just came out here and let off an old, ancient cannon," he said.
Harold and others ran or hit the deck. He said the problem in general in the neighborhood is young people with no recreation, time on their hands – and guns in their hands too.
Tiger Ferguson also heard the shooting from the neighborhood.
"It sounded like Roman candles; like fireworks; like Fourth of July early," Ferguson said.
At first, no one along Marcus Garvey Boulevard could tell where the sound of the gunshots was coming from, until they focused on the bus – which runs from Bedford-Stuyvesant to John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The packed bus was pointed southbound and stopped, and screams were coming from the inside.
"There were a lot of rounds, a lot of blood, you know, a lot of people running and screaming," said Nigel Phillips of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps. "Actually, only one round hit the patient."
The shooting happened directly across the street from the volunteer ambulance corps, and members rushed to help the one person that was hit as the young alleged shooter fled the scene.
"There was a lot of blood everywhere, and I saw the patient leaning against the window of the bus, holding his neck because of the injury that occurred to him," said Woodlyn Fenelus of the corps. "He was still alive."
Witnesses reported somewhere between four and seven shots wife fired in the bus.
The 14-year-old was being questioned in the shooting Thursday night.
A gun was also recovered, police told 1010 WINS.
There was no word on a motive.
You May Also Be Interested In These Stories: