BROOKLYN — State Sen. Jesse Hamilton was in a meeting about gang violence when he heard gunfire, looked out the window and saw a man who had just been shot in the chest bleeding in the street, he told DNAinfo New York.
“We see this young man literally fatally shot, walking, trying to get away,” Hamilton said.
Police confirmed that a 28-year-old man was shot multiple times in the torso and died outside 80 Osborne St., in Brownsville, around 3:10 p.m. on Wednesday.
Hamilton and his colleagues rushed out onto the street to help the man, but he was bleeding profusely from his mouth, shoulder and chest, he said.
“It was unreal,” said Hamilton. “I never saw a guy’s eyes roll up in the back of his head and die right in front of me.”
Police arrived quickly, but when an ambulance had not appeared 10 minutes later Hamilton decided to post a video to Facebook, he said.
“Had they got here earlier," he said, "it could have been the difference between life and death.”
Hamilton appears distraught in the video and speaks over the screams and cries of a woman who cannot be seen.
“There’s no ambulance,” Hamilton says before the camera pans to show a group of six police officers and an NYPD van parked behind him.
“This don’t make no sense,” a woman cries.
Emergency responders transported the unconscious man to Brookdale Hospital where he died from his injuries, police said.
An FDNY spokesman said he had no record of the incident but noted the department would not have been alerted if the man was already dead when police arrived.
Hamilton had been attending a stakeholder’s meeting at the Howard Houses for “The Campus,” a technology center for neighborhood kids to receive lessons in coding and wellness that is meant to provide a safe space from gun violence.
He said that’s why he posted the video.
“We had to record it to let people see the madness that’s going on over here in Brownsville,” said Hamilton. “There’s really no programs, no resources — it’s just the wild, wild west.”
