Police Hunt Brooklyn Triple Murder Suspect Who Opened Fire on Ingersoll Houses

An early-morning shooting on Sunday along the concrete walkways of the Ingersoll Houses in Downtown Brooklyn, near Fort Greene, killed two Ingersoll residents and one man from east Brooklyn, according to the NYPD.

Calvin Clinkscales, 43, from New Lots, and Lacount Simmons, 39, who lived in the affordable housing complex, were both shot in the head and declared dead as soon as emergency responders arrived around 1:45 a.m., police say.

And a third victim — Herbert Brown, 76, also from the housing complex — was hit in the abdomen in the shooting, police say, and died soon after at New York Methodist Hospital in Park Slope.

Herbert’s loved ones told the New York Daily News that the 76-year-old was an innocent bystander who enjoyed spending nights outside.

Brown’s grandson Janeil Smith-Brown, 27, said his grandfather told him earlier that day: “‘I love you. I’m always here for you.’”

On Sunday, police released surveillance footage of a man rummaging through some kind of bin at the Ingersoll Houses before opening fire.

New York City Councilmember Laurie Cumbo, whose district encompasses the Ingersoll Houses, planned to address the triple homicide and advocate for stricter anti-gun laws at a press conference on Monday morning.

“In recent weeks, gun violence and loss of life has become the new narrative throughout communities of color across this city,” Cumbo said in a statement. ”When guns are more accessible then community centers and youth programming, we must change course.”

Cumbo said she thought New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) complexes like the Ingersoll Houses needed a larger police presence, more security cameras and more easily accessible “community centers that will deter our youth who grow up to become adults from deviant behavior.”

At the Ingersoll Community Center on the Tuesday before the shooting, 88th precinct captain Peter Fiorillo had assured neighbors attending a community meeting that summer violence appeared to be winding down.

Then, overnight, the summer’s death toll doubled from three to six.

“On behalf of the 35th Council District, I extend my condolences to the family of those who were killed.early this morning at the Raymond V. Ingersoll Houses of Fort Greene,” Cumbo said. ”As a community, we mourn the loss of three men ages 39, 43, and 76 who died as a result of gun violence.”

From a New York Times report on the shooting:

“I heard the shots from my fifth-story room, and they were so loud, like boom-boom-boom,” said Daniel Alty, 21, who has lived for several months at Ingersoll, a public housing complex of 20 low-rise buildings near the neighborhood’s upscale rowhouses and not far from Downtown Brooklyn.

... City officials said that crime at the houses, which had been among the most violent public housing complexes in the city, had dropped dramatically over the past year, as the city invested millions in anti-crime measures there. Until Sunday morning, the Ingersoll Houses had not had a homicide since 2013, according to New York Police Department statistics.

As a relatively new resident, Mr. Alty said, he was startled and fell to the floor. “I’ve never been so scared,” he said.