Gov. Cuomo Staffer Clinging to Life After Parade Shooting

Update: Gabay, a resident of Clinton Hill, is reportedly out of surgery as of Monday evening but still in critical condition. Police sources told the New York Daily News that the shooting resulted from a gang-related beef, and that Gabay — who had attempted to flee to a Bedford Avenue parking lot when he heard shots — was caught in the crossfire. “He just didn’t deserve this,” his brother told the Daily News through tears. “If you asked for the shirt off his back he’d give you the shoes on his feet.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s first-deputy legal counsel, 43-year-old Carey Gabay, was shot in the head near the West Indian Day Parade route in Brooklyn early Monday morning.

The NYPD said the shooting occurred near Bedford Avenue and Sullivan Place in Crown Heights just before 4 a.m.

Gabay was in critical condition at Kings County Hospital in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, police said.

Cuomo was set to attend the West Indian Day Parade later that day, where he was reportedly planning on making a big announcement.

“Early this morning, Carey Gabay — a member of our administration — was shot in Brooklyn,” Gov. Cuomo said in a Monday morning press statement.

“Carey is an outstanding public servant who joined our administration in 2011,” Cuomo said. “He is a Harvard-educated lawyer who works for the State because he wants to give back to others and make a difference.”

The governor called Gabay a “kindhearted man” and ”a friend to all who have the pleasure of meeting him.”

“I ask that New Yorkers join us by keeping him, his wife Trenelle and his family in their prayers at this time,” Cuomo said.

No suspects have been identified in Gabay’s shooting, police said. The investigation is ongoing.

Gabay was appointed first-deputy counsel of Empire State Development, the governor’s economic development agency, in January.

According to ABC7, the attorney was walking with his brother on Bedford Avenue when he was struck in the head by a stray bullet from a nearby gunfight.

It was one of at least three shootings along the parade route in the wee hours of Labor Day, in which four people were injured (including Gabay) and one young man was killed.

“This tragic shooting — this one by another seemingly random bullet — is the latest heartbreaking reminder that the crime of gun violence must stop,” Cuomo said. “Enough young, innocent people have died, and it must stop now.”

The Labor Day violence broke out around 2 a.m., a couple hours after the start of J’Ouvert — a high-energy tradition among Brooklyn’s Caribbean population in the hours leading up to the West Indian Day Parade. J’Ouvert is a throwback to slave celebrations in the colonial-era Caribbean.

An extra 1,500 police officers had reportedly been deployed to patrol the overnight J’Ouvert festivities.

According to a primer on Brownstoner, the celebrations originated “with French settlers’ introduction of masquerade balls to the Caribbean in 1783. Banned from participating in their masters’ Carnival celebrations, slaves would hold smaller carnivals in their backyards.”