Daytime Talk Show Staffer Killed During Robbery Attempt In Brooklyn
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Friends and colleagues are mourning the untimely death of a 41-year-old man gunned down two blocks from his home in Brooklyn.
Ivan Giovanettina, a prop supervisor on the daytime talk show "The Chew," was found with a bullet wound to the torso at around 9:30 p.m. Thursday on Macon Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, police said.
Daytime Talk Show Staffer Killed During Robbery Attempt In Brooklyn
Giovanettina was the victim of a street robbery, police said. Witnesses saw two men fleeing the scene, 1010 WINS' Al Jones reported. He was rushed to Kings County Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Late Friday night, police release surveillance footage of two suspects wanted in the killing.
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"I'm still trying to figure all this out and wake up from this bad dream -- it's so crazy," said the victim's roommate, Alex Wilson.
Wilson said Giovanettina was an incredibly nice guy, crazy about his cats and an accomplished chef.
"When I heard he was shot, I was like how could this be?" Wilson said.
"We are shocked and saddened to learn of Ivan Giovanettina's untimely death. He was a beloved member of our team and we extend our deepest sympathies to his family and friends," an ABC spokesperson said in a statement Friday.
Serious crime is way down in central Brooklyn over the last 20 years -- more than 80 percent down, but it has ticked up 5 percent in the last two years, and the last week was particularly violent.
A father and young son were shot on Lafayette Street, a 90-year old woman was hit by a bullet at the intersection of Blake and Miller and Giovanettina shot dead on Macon Street.
Anyone with information in regard to this murder is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS.
Witnesses saw two young men running from last night's shooting scene, but weren't able to provide much in the way of a description.
Some said residents, police and policy makers need to come together to stem the violence. Advocates placed a memorial shadow figure at the scene of the fatal shooting and pleaded with the community to help find Giovanettina's killer.
"I want to say this to the shooters: 'You're going to jail!' That's the end result. We're not gonna tolerate this anymore. At the end of the day, that could be your grandmother, daughter, father child that got shot by a bullet that had no name on it," said Tony Herbert of Advocates for Change.
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