Arrest Made in Brooklyn Triple Murder at Ingersoll Houses

Pictured: Allen Cooper. Photo courtesy of the NYPD

FORT GREENE, BROOKLYN — Police have arrested the man they believe fatally shot three men outside the Ingersoll Houses last September.

Downtown Brooklyn resident Allen "Pike" Cooper, 32 — first identified as a suspect in the case in early January — was arrested April 15 in North Carolina, police said. He was extradited to New York on Friday.

Cooper has charged with three counts of murder and three counts of criminal possession of a weapon, police said. Information on his scheduled court appearances was not immediately available.

According to the NYPD, early on the morning of September 20, Cooper opened fire at the public Ingersoll Houses complex — shooting and killing New Lots resident Calvin Clinkscales, 43, and two Ingersoll Houses residents, Lacount Simmons, 39, and Herbert Brown, 76.

The devastating triple murder took place outside 58 Fleet Walk within the Ingersoll complex, police said.

Clinkscales and Simmons were both shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene, according to the NYPD, while Brown was wounded in the abdomen. He died later at New York Methodist Hospital in Park Slope.

“I heard the shots from my fifth-story room, and they were so loud, like boom-boom-boom,” 21-year-old Daniel Alty, an Ingersoll resident, told The New York Times.

According to a report in the New York Daily News, Brown's family said he was an innocent bystander who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Brown's grandson Janeil Smith-Brown, 27, told the Daily News that earlier that day, his grandfather had said to him, "I love you. I’m always here for you."

At the time of his death, Brown was engaged to be married to Gina Hall, 56, as reported by DNAinfo.

Hall told the site that Brown was a giving person who helped anyone he could.

Daquan Herring, a cousin to Lacount Simmons, described his relative as "a great role model in my life."

Following the murders last September, Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo, whose district includes the Ingersoll Houses, called for more police and security cameras on the property, as well as accessible "community centers that will deter our youth from deviant behavior."

On Friday, Cumbo praised the police for the arrest, and said residents "must unite and amplify our voices to make sure that every community is safe and not plagued with gun violence that creates a constant state of fear and destroys families."

The Ingersoll deaths were among seven fatal New York shootings that took place over a 48-hour period that weekend in September 2015, according to the Times — although they were also the first homicides at the Ingersoll Houses since 2013.

Ingersoll is patrolled by the NYPD's 81st Precinct.

According to official police statistics, through April 17, major crimes in the 81st were collectively down nearly 3 percent compared to the same time period last year.

However, three homicides have been reported so far this year in the precinct, compared to one during the same period in 2015.

And overall, shootings have doubled this year: Through April 17, police recorded 12 shootings with 16 victims, compared to six shootings with six victims in 2015.