Angry that he was told to put his beer away during a Sunday get-together among friends and family in East New York, a man shot four people, including a 4-year-old girl who later died, police said.

Just after 11 a.m., several of the seven guests at the fourth-floor apartment at 340 Williams Ave. became angry with General Lee Waiters, 30, because he was drinking a beer. Yesterday was the day after his birthday and friends said they wanted him to stay sober. The argument escalated and Mr. Waiters became hostile, a City Council member, Charles Barron, said.

When a woman, Mary Lee Clark, 51, tried to take the beer from his hand, he pulled a .357 caliber Magnum from his waist and shot her in the head, before taking aim at others in the room.

“I heard four shots, with two-second pauses,” a neighbor who lives two floors above the apartment where the shooting took place, Wandalid Sanchez, 30, said. “Then a woman started screaming really loud. Two minutes later there was a fifth shot.”

Police said Mr. Waiters shot four people, including his girlfriend’s niece, Tajmere Clark, 4, in the chest, and Ms. Clark, his niece’s grandmother. A 14-year-old girl who wasn’t identified was shot in the leg. The younger Clark was declared dead at Brookdale Hospital not long after the shooting. The girl’s grandmother was listed in critical condition.

Two sons of Mr. Waiters’s girlfriend, Derek, 23, and Lorenzo, 17, tried to get the gun away from Mr. Waiters during the dispute, police said. The men managed to slam Mr. Waiters’s head against the corner of a fish tank, cutting him badly. He was held down until police arrived on the scene. Derek was shot in the leg during the scuffle, but was listed in stable condition at King’s County Hospital. Lorenzo cut his hand, but not seriously, police said.

Mr. Waiters hadn’t been charged with a crime last night because he was still being treated for a head injury at the hospital.

Police said a revolver was recovered in the hallway of the housing project, Unity Plaza Long Island Baptist Houses, which sits across from the Phyllis Wheatley School. The housing project is just around the corner from the 75th Precinct house.

Mr. Barron said crime had been on the decline in the infamous neighborhood, but it was events like yesterday’s shooting that gave rise to a perception that it wasn’t safe.

All that was irrelevant when weighing the day’s losses, he said.

“She was an innocent little angel, 3 or 4 years old, with a bullet in her chest,” Mr. Barron said. “I don’t care if crime is up or down, this is a tragedy.”