One person was killed and four others injured during a wild shooting on a packed Boardwalk in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, on Thursday afternoon.
According to the authorities, a gunman opened fire on the Boardwalk near Brighton Sixth Street about 5:20 p.m., gravely wounding a man and a woman; the woman died at Coney Island Hospital, where the man was in critical condition.
Three other people hit by bullets were also hospitalized; a man was in serious condition at Lutheran Medical Center. None of the victims’ names were released.
One person was being questioned in the shootings late Thursday, but the police said there had been no arrests.
The gunfire set off panic on the Boardwalk. Witnesses described throngs of people running and yelling as they scrambled for safety.
“It was pandemonium; everyone was screaming,” said Anastasiya Novikova, 16, who said she had heard five shots. She was on the Boardwalk with her boyfriend.
One of the shots missed a woman who was watching television in her sixth-floor apartment on the corner of Brighton Sixth Street and the Boardwalk. The bullet went through a window, the woman, Marion Smith, said. She said that at first she thought the noise was from her air-conditioner. “I was sitting on the couch and all of a sudden the noise came out of a clear sky,” she said. “I never dreamt it was a bullet. Never in my whole life.”