NEW YORK – Five people were shot Monday at New York City’s West Indian American Day Parade. It’s the latest act of violence to disrupt one of the world’s major annual festivals of Caribbean culture.
Around 2:35 p.m., a gunman targeted a specific group of people and started fire along Brooklyn’s parade route, according to NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell.
The parade began several hours earlier, with thousands of revelers dancing and marching down Eastern Parkway, the borough’s main road. It was forecast to last throughout the night.
Chell stated that two people had suffered critical injuries. The three other victims are expected to survive their injuries, he added. The gunman escaped.
“This was not at random,” Chell stated. “This was a deliberate act by one person towards a group of people. We don’t have any active shooters or anything like that running around Eastern Parkway right now. The parade is going on and will continue till later tonight.”
An Associated Press filmmaker who was nearby when the gunfire rang out witnessed at least two people being treated for what appeared to be facial and arm injuries.
Police roped off an area near the parade route where they had set crime scene markers. The march proceeded to pass as officers were seen bagging goods.
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Chell requested that onlookers provide police with any video footage they may have taken of the shooting.
“We need that video,” Chell explained. “We are going to solve this, but it’s going to take a lot of work.”
The violence alarmed some paradegoers.
“I’m crying because this is so bad. Jalissa Bailey told the New York Post, “How can someone have the heart to fire a gun in front of so many people—babies, children, the elderly?”
“I know this parade has a history of violence, but things have been peaceful in recent years, and we got to hoping that there was enough security in place that maybe that was over with,” Bailey told the crowd.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer marched in the parade and finished the route.
“I’m pained and troubled by the horrible shooting that occurred while we were marching together at the West Indian Day Festival and Parade in Brooklyn,” Schumer wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Thank you to our first responders at the scene. I’m praying for everyone affected. “We must continue to work to end gun violence in America.”
The 57th annual Labor Day parade transforms Eastern Parkway into a kaleidoscope of feather-covered costumes and bright flags as participants make their way down the street behind floats stacked high with speakers blaring soca and reggae music.
The procession regularly draws large spectators, who line the almost 2-mile (3.2-kilometer) route from Crown Heights to the Brooklyn Museum. It is also a popular location for local politicians, many of whom are of West Indian descent or represent the city’s substantial Caribbean minority.
Despite being a festive occasion, the parade and subsequent celebrations have been marred by violence over the years.
In 2016, two people were killed and several more injured along the procession route. The year before, Carey Gabay, an adviser to then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was shot in the head during parade preparations. He died nine days later.
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According to the organizers, the West Indian American Day Parade evolved from more traditionally timed, pre-Lent Carnival celebrations initiated by a Trinidadian immigrant in Manhattan over a century ago. The celebrations were relocated to a warmer time of year in the 1940s.
Brooklyn, home to hundreds of thousands of Caribbean immigrants and their descendants, began staging the march in the 1960s.
The Labor Day procession currently marks the end of many days of carnival events in the city, including a steel pan band competition and J’Ouvert, a separate street party marking slavery’s abolition.