Two men were wounded in a shooting on a residential street in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, and police have launched a search for three men who fled the scene afterward. The gunfire broke out on Raleigh Place just before 11 o'clock at night, in front of a home on the block, sending neighbors ducking for cover and drawing a heavy police response that would keep the street closed for hours.
According to police, two men were struck by the gunfire. A 25-year-old man was shot in the arm and a 21-year-old man was shot in the leg, injuries that left both bleeding at the scene as officers rushed to the block. The shooting unfolded in a residential setting, on a street lined with homes rather than in a commercial strip, adding to the alarm among those who live there.
In the moments after the shots rang out, one of the wounded men sought help at a business nearby. A worker at a local deli said that one of the two men who had been shot ran inside after the gunfire, bleeding as he came through the door, a detail that underscored how close the violence had come to ordinary life on the block.
The scene that investigators were left to process pointed to a burst of gunfire. Officers counted eight shell casings on the ground and placed markers along the sidewalk on Raleigh Place as they searched for clues, methodically documenting the evidence. Police remained out on the street conducting their investigation for hours before finally reopening Raleigh Place in the afternoon.
The focus quickly turned to finding those responsible. Police said they were looking for three men who took off after the shooting, describing two of them as last seen dressed in all black and one last seen dressed in all gray. Authorities asked anyone with information to contact the Crime Stoppers hotline, hoping that tips from the public would help identify the suspects.
For people who live on the block, the violence was jarring. One neighbor said he had heard the gunfire, describing three distinct shots that rang out in the night. Residents voiced frustration that outsiders were bringing trouble to their street, with one saying the block could not keep taking on a negative image because of people who did not even live there.
As the investigation continued, some questions remained unanswered. Two cars were towed away from the area as officers worked the scene, though police said it was not clear whether either of them was connected to the shooting. Detectives were still working to establish exactly what had led to the gunfire and to track down the three men who had fled into the night.