UPDATE: Suspect In Coney Island Shootings Puts Forward Video Game Alibi
Yesterday, we reported on the deadly shootings that took place at the Gravesend Houses (2703 West 33rd Street) in Coney Island that killed one and left three others injured this past Friday. Joseph Brown, the alleged shooter, turned himself in on Saturday and, according to a report in the New York Daily News, Brown was busy playing video games at the time of the shooting.
Brown contends that he was playing Call of Duty in an apartment building next door and has five witnesses to back his claims. When Brown saw on the news that police were looking for him, he turned himself in on Saturday.
Brown’s brother, Alfred, blamed the apartment’s owner, who is legally blind, for falsely identifying Joseph because he had braids like the shooter.
“He’s mild-mannered,” [Alfred] Brown, 35, told the Daily News. “He doesn’t own a gun.”
Friends of Brown claim his innocence can be proved because he was playing video games online at the time of the shooting.
“He was here. He is innocent,” Shawna Brown said. “There’s no possible way he did this. Who is he – Houdini? How is he in two places at once?”
Police are still searching for another accomplice in the shooting. Brown’s family believes that the accomplice is a woman who had a brother who they suspect is the real shooter.
The Brown family, who expressed sympathies for the victims of the shootings, also argued against the media’s portrayal of Joseph’s past:
The family also disputed cops’ contentions that Brown had a long rap sheet, and said he’d been arrested twice in his life. The first case, a 2007 drug bust, led to a wrongful arrest and excessive force suit that netted Brown a $30,000 settlement, court records show.
He was also accused of looting after Superstorm Sandy, and is planning on suing the NYPD for false arrest in that case as well, the family said.
Brown was ordered held without bail pending his next court hearing in April.
