NYPD: 21-year-old man critically injured in shooting near Crotona Park Pool
No arrests have been made.
More Stories
A 21-year-old man was critically injured after police said he was shot outside of Crotona Park Pool on Sunday afternoon.
Authorities say it happened shortly after 3:30 p.m. near Fulton Avenue and East 173rd Street.
A single gunshot shell casing sat under a rock and red plastic cup at the scene, which served as a temporary police evidence marker.
Crime tape lined and crisscrossed the roadway along the pool, where police said the victim was shot in the neck and taken to a hospital in critical condition.
“It’s a public area,” said Nicole Johnson, of Crotona. “It’s a big, giant park. You wouldn’t think that people would be shooting in broad daylight.”
Families like Johnson and her loved ones, which included seven young children, were trying to pack the public pool when the shooting happened.
“It could’ve been my baby,” Johnson said. “It could’ve been me. If I happened to be walking up that block, it could’ve been any one of us, and that’s scary.”
The city’s parks department closed the pool early due to the investigation.
“We walked over there and they already said it was shut down,” said Sophy Rodriguez, who was trying to enter the pool with her son. “Look at the police presence and all this. So, it’s a wrap.”
It was a wrap on a holiday weekend - with plenty of summer still to go.
“The summer just began, and the violence doesn’t end,” Rodriguez said. “We’re not coming here anymore.”
“New York City is getting wild in the summer,” Johnson said. “The guns are coming out, but where are the guns coming from? I don’t know.”
As of Sunday night, police have not yet released the victim’s name or any information about the shooter or motive.
As for the Crotona Pool, a parks department spokesperson told News 12 that it will reopen on Monday.
