Violent Memorial Day Weekend in Brooklyn: 5 Shot, 1 Killed

• Pictured: The El Shabazz playground in Bed-Stuy, where a young man was shot Sunday. Image via Google Maps

By SIMONE WILSON and JOHN V. SANTORE

BROOKLYN, NY — Five men were shot, one of them fatally, over the hot and muggy Memorial Day weekend in Brooklyn, according to the NYPD.

And the borough's holiday violence was part of a larger trend throughout the city: At least 14 people were shot over the three-day weekend in NYC, according to reports in local newspapers.

First, around 2:30 p.m. Sunday, a 20-year-old man — identified by the New York Post as Gahard Larkins — was hit with gunfire in Bed-Stuy's El Shabazz Playground, located at 538 Macon St., according to the NYPD.

Larkins was taken to Kings County Hospital in serious but not life-threatening condition, police said.

The Post reported that Larkins was playing basketball when he was shot. Witnesses described nearby people fleeing the park in fear.

The shooting victim later told detectives that one of his friends was the gunman's intended target, according to a police spokesperson.

In Sunday's second shooting — this one on Bond Street near Wyckoff Street, outside the Gowanus Houses in Boerum Hill — an 18-year-old was grazed by a bullet that whizzed past his head around 6:10 p.m., according to the New York Daily News. He was reportedly rushed to the hospital in critical condition, but was expected to survive.

And in Sunday's third shooting, around 8:30 p.m., 19-year-old aspiring comedian Rashasheed Stallwolth was shot through the neck at Brownsville's Howard Houses complex on Mother Gaston Boulevard, the Daily News reported — leaving him unable to speak, but miraculously still alive.

The teen's family members told reporters that Stallwolth was an innocent bystander who took a stray bullet. "He was in the park playing basketball," his aunt, Maria Robertson, told the Daily News. “My daughter was in the park. Next thing you know, we're hearing shots. He turned his back to run, that's when the bullet must have hit him. He was trying to get away."

The next night, around 5:30 p.m. Monday, another 19-year-old was reportedly shot in the shoulder during an argument at Sheridan and Belmont avenues in City Line, near East New York.

Then, just before 2 a.m. on Tuesday, police received a report of a man shot near the intersection of Schenectady Avenue and St. John's Place in Weeksville, near Crown Heights.

A 46-year old man was found with a gunshot would to the chest at that location, according to the NYPD. He was taken to Kings County Hospital, where he was declared dead.

The weekend's final shooting victim was identified by Brooklyn News 12 as Benedict Sam, a Livery cab driver and St. Vincent native who lived in the area.

No arrests had been made in the homicide case by late Tuesday morning, police said.