13-year-old boy shot and killed walking home from Brooklyn Nets game, police say
NEW YORK -- Police are investigating the shooting death of a 13-year-old boy in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Police found Troy Gill with gunshot wounds to his arm and chest at the corner of Brooklyn and Saint Marks Avenues after neighbors called 911 reporting a barrage of gunfire late Thursday night.
"It was so close together, so loud," one neighbor said.
Police sources said Gill was walking home from the Brooklyn Nets game when he was shot on Bergen Street and New York Avenue. Gill ran another block before collapsing less than half a mile from his home, police said.
Detectives processed multiple crime scenes on Brooklyn Avenue overnight and found six shell casings.
"This has to stop. Everybody has to come together and help everybody get these guns off the streets, and all these kids, because this don't make no sense, he's only 13 years old. Who did he know? What beef did he have with anyone? None," said Dana Queen, a neighbor.
"I'm a teacher. So to hear that ... We've had students die before and just watching a mother go through that is awful," said Erin Speer.
"We have to have conversations about, I think more about life and valuing life, because if you value life, you're not going to shoot a gun," said Liza Jessie Peterson, another neighbor.
It's been a particularly violent week in Crown Heights. Monday, a bodega worker was shot and killed on Franklin Avenue. Wednesday, a 33-year-old man was gunned down outside his home.
"Taking somebody's life isn't worth it, because not only are you destroying their life, their families' lives, but you're destroying your life as well," said Stanley B., who's lived in Brooklyn for 40 years.
Sources said Gill was supposed to be with other kids. Police were trying to figure out a motive and if he was the intended target.
So far, no arrests have been made.
A week of gun violence
On Monday night, 37-year-old Nazim Berry was gunned down while he worked inside a deli on the corner of Franklin Avenue and Lincoln Place.
His family told CBS New York he got into a dispute with a customer over an unpaid cigar. Witnesses said the customer left, and then came back with a gun and shot him in the head.
Then on Wednesday, 33-year-old Lamine Bah was also shot in the head outside the Ebbets Field Apartments. His family believes he was an innocent bystander caught at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Police said Berry's death was the first shooting in the precinct so far this year.
No arrests have been made in any of the incidents.
Anyone with information about the shootings is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). You can also submit a tip via their website or via DM on Twitter, @NYPDTips. All calls are kept confidential.
