BROOKLYN — Police have arrested a parolee in connection with the shooting of five teens in an East Flatbush playground late Monday afternoon in a feud that emanated over a stolen designer bag.
Bernard Bellony, 21, was arrested Tuesday morning for the quintuple shooting inside Harry Maze Playground, on Avenue D and East 57th Street, about 5 p.m. Charges were pending, police said.
An angry Police Commissioner Bill Bratton called the violence the “height of insanity."
“Five kids in the middle of New York City get shot over a damn backpack,” he said.
NYPD Chief of Detectives said the MCM bag, which typically costs more than $1,000, was stolen from Bellomy’s younger brother, who then alerted his sibling about what happened.
“He went and got his brother, Bernard, and came back to the location and confronted the individuals he felt took it,” Boyce said.
Bellony was on parole until March 2018 for a gun possession arrest from two years ago, the chief said.
The five victims were all expected to survive. The FDNY said six people were wounded, but police say the number is five.
Investigators are still trying to determine whether any of them actually stole the backpack, Boyce added.
