Another Shooting In Fort Greene Claims The Life Of Crown Heights Music Producer

Another shooting in Fort Greene claimed the life of 31-year-old Eric McKinney of Crown Heights last night (Sunday, October 11), after he crashed his car into a fence just a block away from Brooklyn Hospital’s entrance.

Police responded at 10:36pm to a call of a man shot inside his car at Ashland Place and DeKalb Avenue. They found McKinney with gunshot wounds to his left arm and body; EMS rushed him inside the hospital, where he died. He had reportedly been shot while waiting at a red light near the Brooklyn Academy of Music and then attempted to drive himself to the hospital. The passenger side window had been shot through.

No suspect descriptions have yet been released and the investigation is ongoing.

McKinney was a music producer; his death marks the latest shooting homicide in Fort Greene — the fourth in less than a month, although there have been other non-fatal shootings in the neighborhood, as well.

Although the details of McKinney’s death have yet to be determined or confirmed, the general rash of violence has galvanized local elected officials, community members, and police to speak against a “culture of gun violence” and to call on residents to simultaneously “snitch” on the people who make their community unsafe and work together to make guns less glamorous to youth — who, they say, need to be invested and believed in with youth employment programs and other positive training opportunities to keep them off the streets.