BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — An ex-con enraged by the shooting of his 16-year-old cousin and two other people hopped in his car, sped after the gunman, hit him and then leaped from his vehicle to pummel him until police arrived, NYPD officials and relatives said.
Demeatrius Mayo, 28, raced to Stuyvesant Avenue and Pulaski Street just before 6 p.m. Wednesday after his 16-year-old cousin was shot by Cush Wright-El, a 25-year-old from Baltimore, relatives and officials said.
Mayo got into his Audi and sped after Wright-El, driving the wrong way down one-way DeKalb Avenue before striking him with his car, police and relatives said. Mayo then jumped out of the vehicle and began to beat Wright-El, police said.
Both Mayo and Wright-El were arrested at the scene, police said.
''He was a hero. He chased the man with the gun. He chased the dude and caught him. How do you lock up the hero who stopped the guy who shot three people?'' asked Mayo's uncle, Donnell Mayo, 51, who witnessed the attack.
Donnell Mayo said the gunman was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt when he came to the scene and opened fire. A bunch of people were on block and a chess game was going on, he said.
''This dude came out of nowhere," he said.
The 16-year-old, whose name DNAinfo is withholding because of his age, was struck in the shoulder and was taken to Kings County Hospital in stable condition, police said.
"He was just standing here and they shot him," said a woman who said she was the teenage boy's sister, but declined to give her name. "He got shot in the back and the bullet went out his shoulder. It just went in and out."
A 61-year-old woman was shot in the leg and was taken to Kings County Hospital, officials said. Another man, identified by relatives as Mayo's uncle, Willie Mayo, was also shot in the leg and taken to the hospital, family said.
Wright-El was awaiting arraignment on charges of criminal possession of a loaded firearm, officials said. Investigators recovered a .40-caliber Smith and Wesson Desert Eagle handgun at the scene, sources said.
Wright-El tried to kill someone in Baltimore when he was 15 years old and did three years behind bars for it, court records show.
He was arrested again on an attempted murder charge in 2010 but was found not guilty, records show. In 2013, he was arrested for a third attempted murder, but prosecutors dropped the case against him, records show.
He was also due back in court on Oct. 9 for a 2011 weapons case, records show.
Mayo was awaiting arraignment on charges of assault, reckless endangerment, reckless driving and driving without a license, officials said. He spent much of the past decade behind bars, doing five years in prison on a 2003 assault, then spending another 18 months in prison after violating his parole by committing a second assault in 2009, officials said.
While serving time in 2010, Mayo was also arrested in connection to an August 2009 murder in the Marcy Houses, a police spokesman said. The outcome of the case was not immediately available.