A 50-year-old man was shot in the face in Brooklyn early Friday morning after a minor car crash on the street escalated into gunfire, police said. The shooting, in the Fort Greene section of the borough, left the victim wounded but stable as detectives launched an investigation and began searching for the gunman who opened fire and fled.
The violence unfolded just after 4:15 in the morning. According to police, the man had just been involved in a minor crash when a gunman ran up to his vehicle and opened fire, striking him in the right cheek. What had been an ordinary fender-bender on a darkened street turned suddenly and shockingly violent in a matter of moments.
The wounded man was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition. Despite being shot in the face, he remained alert and conscious and was able to speak with the responding officers, giving investigators a firsthand account of what had just happened to him on the street.
After the shooting, the gunman took off on foot and ran into the adjacent Walt Whitman Houses, a public housing complex located right next to where the crash and the shooting occurred. That escape route gave the shooter cover and a warren of buildings to disappear into as officers hurried to the scene.
Police described the gunman as a man of large build who was wearing a black shirt and gray shorts. As of Friday morning, he had not been taken into custody, and the search for him was ongoing. Authorities had not released a possible motive for the sudden attack that followed the minor collision.
The block was shut down as NYPD officers began working the scene, with the street closed to traffic while detectives gathered evidence and canvassed the surrounding area in the Fort Greene neighborhood. Officials said the investigation was in its earliest stages, with the gunman still at large and the circumstances that led to the gunfire still being pieced together.