Two Injured as East Village Dispute Escalates Into Shooting
Some East Village residents were awoken by the sound of gunshots yesterday morning when a man carrying a pistol shot two people during an argument.
Konrad Fiedler / Konrad Fiedler/New York Sun
A man was shot six times by another man on 7th Street and Avenue D outside of a deli.
The incident, involving a dispute between residents of 278 E. 7th St., off Avenue D, took place at about 8:30 a.m., police said. The argument escalated into violence outside in the street when, according to police, one of the two individuals pulled out a handgun and shot the other man six times as he tried to flee the attacker. Pedestrians dove for cover while the assailant fired wildly, sending stray bullets flying through a glass storefront and into a nearby deli, where they hit a worker twice in the arm. The shooter then hopped in a car and sped away from the scene. Both shooting victims are expected to survive, police said, and are recovering from their wounds at Bellevue Hospital.
After the attack, the suspected gunman, 37, drove to a nearby police station and turned himself in, telling the officers there that he had shot someone before asking to speak to a lawyer, police said. A firearm, which police described as similar to a Tec-9 handgun, was recovered from his car. Police are working to determine what prompted the attack and have yet to charge anyone in connection with the shooting.
Neighbors identified the man who suffered six gunshot wounds as Calvin Gibson, 51. The victim's older brother, Rayfield Gibson, 55, said his sibling had just dropped his 13-year-old son off at summer school when the shooting occurred. Rayfield Gibson, who also lives in 278 E. 7th St., said he heard the gunfire from his apartment, but did not realize who had been shot until his brother's girlfriend called him with the news. Shortly afterward, police knocked on his door to check on him.
Neighbors of the suspected gunman said he suffers from psychological problems and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
"He just flipped out," a neighbor who saw the incident from her window, Aurelia Diaz, 38, said in an interview, "This is a man that needs some serious medical help."
