Two young girls were injured by gunfire Monday night when shots targeted at someone else were fired toward a Brooklyn playground, NYPD officials said.
Assistant Chief Scott Henderson of Brooklyn North told reporter that the girls, ages 9 and 11, were playing at the Hilltop playground on Dean Street and Thomas S. Boyland Street in Brownsville, as the older girl’s mother watched from a park bench.
Just after 9 p.m., two people apparently opened fire— shooting six rounds at someone else whom officials are working to identify, Henderson said.
The 9-year-old girl was shot in the right leg, and the 11-year-old was shot in the back. Both were transported to Brookdale Hospital by a family member, “conscious and alert,” Henderson said. Officials said they were later transferred to Maimonides Medical Center, and the younger girl was released early Tuesday morning.
Henderson called the shooting a “horrendous act of violence” during a press conference Monday night and urged the public to submit tips to the department’s Crime Stoppers hotline.
Deputy Chief John Mastronardi said detectives were still looking at possible motives and that police recovered two different types of shell casings from the scene.
“We believe, based on our investigation, that these children were unintended targets,” he said, pointing out the girls’ Crocs still on the field where they’d been playing.
The shooting occurred in the 73rd precinct, which is experiencing a spike in gun violence this year, according to data from the NYPD.
Just half a mile from the park where the girls were playing, 14-year-old Josai Guy was shot and killed Sunday morning in his family’s apartment in the Howard Houses. Police later arrested his 12-year-old cousin and charged him with murder, though it was reported that the younger boy was playing with a gun when it accidentally went off.
According to NYPD shooting data compiled by Gothamist, ten people have been shot and killed in the 73rd precinct so far this year, which includes the neighborhoods of Ocean Hill and Brownsville.
That’s a sizable increase from 2023, when six people were killed by gun violence in the precinct during the entire year.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
