CHINATOWN — A father was fatally shot in the head Sunday just steps from his Catherine Street housing complex after spending the day shopping for gifts for his wife, police and family said.
Rashaun Nicholson, 31, had gone to Brooklyn to buy a gift for his wife, Fontaine Nicholson, and was making his way home when he and another person got into a fight outside 78 Catherine St., a homeless shelter near Cherry Street, about 7 p.m., police and his wife said.
The person then shot Nicholson in the head and fled the scene, police said.
"I heard the shooting. It woke me up," said neighbor Steve Portelli, 60.
"I saw him laying on the floor [under] a white blanket," he added.
Nicholson, who lived in the Alfred E. Smith Houses about a block away with his wife and four kids, was pronounced dead at the scene, police and family said.
"I'm still trying to take all this in," said Fontaine Nicholson, as she left her family's apartment Monday morning.
The shooter had not been found as of Monday morning, an NYPD spokesman said.
