The New York City Police Department is searching for eight men in connection with a Sunday shootout on Coney Island’s Mermaid Avenue. Some 36 rounds were fired when two groups of men started fighting near W 25th Street. No injuries were reported as a result of the incident.
Of the eight men involved in the fight in front of 2417 Mermaid Avenue around 4:30 pm, five of them pulled out guns and fired — but only caused property damage with none of the men involved or passersby being harmed.
The two groups of four men each fled in opposite directions following the shootout, with one of the quartets running into 2926 W. 25th Street, and the other fleeing east on Mermaid Avenue, according to police.
Officers from the NYPD’s 60 Precinct are seeking the public’s assistance in locating the eight individuals for charges of attempted assault.
The incident was the second incident of gun violence in the area in less than a week. On May 25, a gunman fatally shot 22-year-old Rasard Deas outside a Stillwell Avenue restaurant just a few miles from the scene of the shootout. In early May, a 57-year-old man stabbed a police officer and was shot by police after he stepped out of his vehicle wielding two knives during a traffic stop near Coney Island’s famous amusement district.
Despite the back-t0-back incidents, shootings are down more than 13 percent in the Brooklyn South patrol compared to the same time last year.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/ or on Twitter @NYPDTips. All calls are strictly confidential.
