A popular chicken and pizza spot on Rockaway Avenue in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn stayed shuttered all day after an overnight burst of gun violence left one worker dead and sent a second man to the hospital. The halal fast food eatery, known to regulars as American Best, became a crime scene in the early morning hours, and by the evening it remained closed as investigators pieced together what happened inside.
According to police, officers arrived at around one in the morning to a gruesome scene at the restaurant. A 44 year old man, described as an employee of the eatery, had been shot in the head, while a 39 year old man was found with a wound to his leg. Investigators said there was evidence that a few shots had been fired inside the location.
Both men were rushed to Brookdale Hospital for treatment. The man who had been shot in the head was pronounced dead, while the man wounded in the leg remained at the hospital. Police said it was not immediately clear whether the second man was also a worker at the restaurant, leaving open questions about how the two victims were connected to the business and to each other.
Nearly 18 hours after the shooting, the identity of the man who was killed had still not been released. Police had not indicated what the motive might have been, and there was no description of exactly what unfolded or of who officers were looking for. Detectives were continuing to go through evidence and video recorded from inside the restaurant, hoping the footage would help fill in the gaps.
For the moment, no one was in custody. Officials said the investigation was still active, with the surveillance recordings from the eatery seen as a key piece of the puzzle as authorities worked to identify a suspect and establish exactly what led to the violence in the busy commercial stretch.
The shooting rattled a neighbourhood that residents describe as generally calm. Neighbours who eat and shop along the street said this particular row of businesses had always seemed very safe, and that whatever was behind the shooting, whether a robbery or something personal, it was deeply disturbing to a community not used to this kind of bloodshed.
Regulars also remembered the workers at American Best as kind to their customers, describing the eatery as the best chicken spot in the area and expressing shock that such a thing could happen there. One neighbour said he wished the community could find a way to stop the violence, adding that robberies were rare on the block and a shooting almost unheard of, while others voiced hope that with everything under surveillance the person responsible would soon be caught and taken off the streets.