Man And Child Shot In Coney Island During Citywide Shooting Wave
A 10-year-old boy and 25-year-old man were injured by stray bullets after an unidentified man opened fire on Mermaid Avenue near West 23rd Street on Saturday.
The two were among at least 21 people shot across all five boroughs in a shockingly violent weekend that left four people dead and 17 injured. Nine were victims of shootings that took place in Brooklyn.
Police responded to the Coney Island incident at 7:30 p.m., finding the boy shot in the knee and the man in the arm. They were both treated at Lutheran Hospital and expect a full recovery. The two did not know each other.
Police are now searching for a man they believe to be the shooter, who was captured on nearby surveillance cameras wearing a yellow t-shirt, yellow shorts, white sneakers and a multi-colored hat.
The 10-year-old is identified by the Daily News as Eddie Abdelrahaman. The paper caught up with the boy and his father:
When Kamal Ismail, 51, heard a string of gunshots outside his Coney Island home, he immediately did a head count for his children. All but one of his six kids, 10-year-old Eddie Abdelrahaman, was in the house.
“My heart went down, like I was having a heart attack,” Ismail said Sunday.
His son was grazed in the thigh when the barrage of gunfire erupted at 7:20 p.m. Sunday.
“It just stinged a little bit. It didn’t hurt,” said Eddie, who’s out of school for summer vacation and was going into a store on 24th St. and Mermaid Ave. to get juice with two friends when bullets went flying.
“Whenever we heard the first shot, everyone got on the floor and ducked,” he said, “When we heard it, we thought it was fireworks.”
Ismail said he is constantly concerned about violence in Coney Island.
ABC News helps put the shootings in context:
It marks the third time in June that at least a dozen people were shot over a weekend. But police commissioner William Bratton says the number of shootings is actually lower than this time last year, and that 1,200 additional officers will be hitting the streets this week.
They include 600 new officers who are graduating Monday from the Police Academy. They will be partnered with veteran officers and sent out to target the most violent, crime-ridden neighborhoods in the city.
Two other shootings took place nearby over the bloody weekend, including one in Flatlands on Avenue J and another in Flatbush on Church Avenue.
