Six-year-old boy and four others shot and wounded during pre-dawn J’Ouvert celebration in Brooklyn

Five people were shot and wounded, including a six-year-old boy, when gunfire erupted at an outdoor J’Ouvert celebration in Brooklyn.  

The shooting took place just before 3am Monday at the intersection of Nostrand Avenue and Crown Street in Crown Heights – where about 300 people had congregated for a pre-dawn processional, according to the NYPD. 

The boy was shot in the left leg while two men ages 45 and 34 were hit in the right leg and another 40-year-old man and 47-year-old woman were struck in the left foot. 

All five victims were transported to Kings County Hospital Center with non-life threatening injuries. None have been identified publicly. 

NYPD officers arrested two men at the scene who were both carrying guns, but police have not confirmed whether either was the shooter.  

Detectives are still working to determine the motive for the shooting. It’s unclear whether any of those shot were targeted on purpose. 

The NYPD’s Chief of Department Terence Monahan tweeted about the incident and condemned the ‘senseless violence’. 

Disturbing video captured the moment gunshots rang out as revelers screamed in terror. 

‘It was really crazy – everyone was in shock,’ Joshua Kristal, who was in the procession, told the New York Post. 

The youngest victim was seen lying in a pool of blood as bystanders and police rushed to his aid – including a woman believed to be the boy’s mother.  

‘The boy, his mom was carrying him. You could see there was blood in his pants,’ Kristal said. 

‘She dropped him, I didn’t know what to do, then I saw tons of blood.’ 

Kristal said he ran over to help the woman who was shot in the foot and held pressure on her wound until medics arrived. 

‘A woman was walking around saying: “I’m shot in the foot, I’m shot in the foot,”‘ he recalled. 

‘I was holding her foot. I was wondering where all this blood was coming from. It was really crazy.’ 

Video obtained by ABC7 showed first responders carting people into ambulances soon after the shooting took place.  

Mayor Bill de Blasio canceled the official J’Ouvert celebration and the West Indian Day parade, which also would have been held on Monday, due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

But many people got up early to recognize J’Ouvert – a pre-dawn party that signifies the launch of Carnival in Caribbean nations – before daybreak on Monday anyway. 

De Blasio had warned last week that the NYPD would break up any Labor Day gatherings that flouted his ban. 

Hours after the shooting, a heavily police presence was stationed on Eastern Parkway, the traditional site of the West Indian Day parade.  

The West Indian American Day Carnival Association is still planning to hold its 53rd annual celebration, but will be doing so virtually.  

Brooklyn’s J’Ouvert festivities have been marred by violence in past years.

In 2016, 22-year-old grad student Tiarah Poyau was shot dead through her eye by Reginald Moise, 20, after she asked him to stop grinding on her at the festival. 

In 2017, four people were stabbed and one was shot during the revelry.