Police Look for Suspect in Lafayette Gardens Courtyard Shooting

Police are looking for Corey Brown, 21, who allegedly shot and killed a woman in the courtyard of the Lafayette Gardens Houses late Tuesday morning, officials said. The woman, Nicoleia Taylor, 24, was not the intended target in the gunfire, according to police.

A “prior dispute” possibly triggered the shooting and  Taylor was caught in the crossfire between two groups, cops said. Emergency Medical Services received a call about the shooting at 11:22 a.m. and transported Taylor – along with another person – to the Brooklyn Hospital Center, where she was pronounced dead from a gunshot wound to the chest, according to a FDNY spokesman. The spokesman could not provide information on the condition of the other person.

“[Taylor] was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Andre Nash, 51, a neighbor, said of the shooting. “Whatever it was to do with, she wasn’t it. She was the innocent victim. She never did nothing to nobody. She worked. She took care of her son – loving family.”

Another neighbor who declined to provide his name told The Nabe that Taylor was from East New York and visiting her cousin in Lafayette Gardens when the shooting occurred. Taylor’s family declined to comment on the shooting.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Brown, approximately 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, is still at large.

This is the first time in two years that someone died after a shooting at Lafayette Gardens, when someone shot and killed 30-year-old Edward Lee on the northwest corner of Skillman Street and DeKalb Avenue. Two men also died as a result of shootings on the grounds of Lafayette Gardens in April 2011.

Stay with The Nabe for updates on this story.

Additional reporting by Daniel Lewis and Rebecca Bratek.