Five shot and injured during unofficial Caribbean J’Ouvert celebration

NEW YORK, Sept 8, CMC –Five people, including a seven-year-old child, were shot and injured during the unofficial Caribbean J’Ouvert celebration in Brooklyn, New York on Monday.

The Brooklyn-based J’Ouvert City International, Inc., organizers of the annual Caribbean J’Ouvert celebrations, had cancelled all street celebrations this year, planning a virtual celebration instead.

The West Indian American Day Carnival Association (WIADCA), which organises the annual Caribbean carnival parade on Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway, had also cancelled the celebration and held virtual events.

But still, many took to the streets of Brooklyn on Monday, a public holiday in America, despite official warnings to stay away.

Police said a barrage of gun shots were fired during the early hours of Monday and that a seven-year-old boy was shot in his left leg and rushed to the nearby Kings County Hospital in Central Brooklyn, with non-life-threatening injuries.

The child’s mother, Patricia Brathwaite, 47, and three men  - all adults - were also shot in their feet and have since been hospitalised.

Chief of detectives of the New York Police Department (NYPD), Terence A. Monahan, said that two men were arrested in connection with the shootings and that two guns were recovered.

He said the investigation was still “ongoing.”

Brathwaite subsequently told reporters that she was shot in her foot.

“I got out of the cab, was coming home, and a group of people were walking down the block, and I was waiting for them to pass, and somebody started to shoot,” she said, adding “I just got shot, and I turned around; my son was on the ground. I didn’t see anyone pull a gun or shooting the gun.”

Police believe the shooting was gang-related.

Over the years, Caribbean J’Ouvert has been marred by gun violence near the parade route.

In 2015, a legal aide to New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo was fatally shot in the crossfire between rival gangs during the celebration.

The incident prompted the NYPD to move the J’Ouvert start time and to increase police presence and install metal detectors along the parade route.

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