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17-Year-Old Injured in Franklin Avenue Shooting in Crown Heights

 An upturned stroller and planter mark the scene of a shooting on Franklin Avenue Monday night that sent a 17-year-old to the hospital with wounds to the torso.
An upturned stroller and planter mark the scene of a shooting on Franklin Avenue Monday night that sent a 17-year-old to the hospital with wounds to the torso.
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DNAinfo

CROWN HEIGHTS — A teenage boy was wounded in a shooting Monday night in front of a coffee shop in the neighborhood's busiest commercial strip.

The violence was sparked when a group of men began to argue outside of the Little Zelda coffee shop on Franklin Avenue just south of Park Place just before 7 p.m., according to witnesses and police.

After a short struggle, someone pulled out a gun and shot the 17-year-old twice in the torso, officials said. The suspects fled and were still at large as of Tuesday morning.

The victim was taken to Kings County Hospital and remains there in stable condition, police said.

An overturned baby stroller, spilled ceramic planter and blood on the sidewalk marked the scene of the shooting Monday night, according to photos from witnesses.

Crown Heights resident Joe Charles, 43, saw others trying to help the 17-year-old who fell to the ground and was bleeding "from around his stomach" after the shooting, he said.

"A bunch of people were surrounding him," he said. "A girl was helping him out. She was trying to stop the bleeding using a shirt."

 

“Generally, I feel like this neighborhood is very safe, but this incident reminds me that you just never know,” said John, a local resident who also witnessed the shooting but who did not want to share his last name.

This is the second shooting on the avenue this year. On January 5, a 17-year-old boy was shot and wounded as he was coming out of the Bengal Discount Store on Franklin Avenue and Lincoln Place around 5 p.m.

Shootings in the area are up slightly since last year, according to the 77th Precinct commanding officer, Deputy Inspector Eddie Lott. At a public meeting with residents on May 11, he said there had been 10 shootings in the precinct through that date, as opposed to 7 shootings in the same time period in 2014.