A gunman in a sport utility vehicle opened fire on a group of people standing in a Brooklyn deli on Friday night, sending three people — one of them a pregnant woman — to a local hospital with gunshot wounds, the police said.
The drive-by shooting at 7 p.m. turned a routine gathering of regulars at a neighborhood deli into a scene of panic and chaos. According to the police and witnesses, eight or nine were people were standing in the DeKalb Gourmet Deli at the corner of DeKalb and Kent Avenues when the gunman, sitting in a white Cadillac Escalade that sped by, unleashed a hail of bullets into the store.
The gunfire sent the group rushing toward the back of the deli, said an employee who identified himself as the cashier but declined to give his name. After diving behind the register, the cashier emerged a few moments later to find three wounded people on the floor, one of them a 24-year-old pregnant woman with a gunshot to her upper thigh.
With blood pouring from the wound, the woman appeared to be the most seriously hurt, said the cashier, who ran to get a towel to wrap around her leg. According to the police — who came from the 88th Precinct station house a block away — the other two victims were a 15-year-old boy, who was shot in the arm and the torso, and a 20-year-old man, who was hit in the leg. The three were rushed to Kings County Hospital Center, where they were all in stable condition as of 10 p.m. Friday, the police said.
“It all happened in a second; it was just like one, two, and then everyone ran to the back,” the cashier said. “I was just scared about the lady. She kept on opening and closing her eyes. I said, ‘Just keep your eyes open.’ ”
At the hospital after the shooting, Nora Parker, who said she was the mother of the 15-year-old, identified him as Kevin Smith and said he had just left their apartment in the Lafayette Gardens housing complex to buy a snack when the shooting took place.
Michelle Drisland, who lives near the deli, said she was walking a short distance away when she heard gunfire. She arrived at the store to find one of the wounded men lying on the ground, clutching his chest as a crowd gathered.
Ms. Drisland said groups of men gather daily outside the deli.
“There’s always a pack of people hanging out there,” she said. “It’s always a crew of five or six guys that hang out in that vicinity — literally right out front of that store.
“It’s really strange,” she added, “because there’s nowhere else like that on DeKalb. But right when you get to that store, there’s always a group of guys.”
