Roughly 50 activists rallied on Thursday outside the Major R. Owens Health & Wellness Community Center to assure residents it was a safe space following a rare shooting earlier this week.
A 17-year-old was shot in the abdomen and left in critical condition in the building’s lobby at roughly 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday. The shooter has not been arrested. Police said they plan to arrest the teen victim when he is well enough because they found a gun on him at the time of the incident.
There were 15 shootings in the area last year, according to police data. But the rare incident inside the community center – a haven for local young people and parents – was especially disturbing.
“We haven’t had any incidents at this facility in the time that it’s been open,” Councilmember Crystal Hudson said at the rally on Thursday, describing the shooting that took place after a basketball game.
The victim was doing “a lot better” on Thursday, Hudson told Gothamist.
The community center, which was converted from a historic National Guard armory building in 2021, provides after-school programs, summer camps, swim lessons and art performances.
According to Barbara Wagner, a spokesperson for the community center, staff members heightened security this week by adding new security guards and requiring bag and ID checks at the entrance.
“Moving forward, our large events will receive enhanced protections and screening, including wanding of all individuals, as well as having an NYPD presence,” Wagner said in an emailed statement.
“Police and metal detectors does not equal public safety,” said Kirsten John Foy, a reverend and one time aide to then-Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, outside the center on Thursday. “It’s community.”
Foy said that the mayor’s office dispatched a mental health crisis team to the community center on Thursday morning to “serve the needs of those who have been traumatized by this incident or any other incident.”
Foy was joined by Hudson as well as Andre T. Mitchell, the city’s gun violence czar; Michelle Gibbs, the chair of the West Indian American Day Carnival Association; and other community leaders. They echoed that the shooting was an “isolated incident,” and encouraged local teens – including the two involved in Tuesday’s shooting – to return to the center.
“Some time in the near future these two individuals will be brought back as seedlings,” said Joe Coello, the community center’s chair.
“They’re both victims,” Mitchell said.
On Thursday morning, young community center members in workout gear as well as parents dragging reluctant toddlers were enjoying the site as usual. Several NYPD officers were stationed outside.
Declan Avirov was heading in to exercise, unaware of Tuesday’s shooting and unconcerned that more violence would follow.
“The only way to go about your day in a city where violence is happening and the roots of it are really deep is just to live your life as normal,” said Avirov, who has lived in Crown Heights for four years. “Circumscribing where you go and what you do on a day-to-day basis … What’s really the use?
But Roselyn Ford, who passes the armory every day on her way to work, said every shooting surprises her.
“It makes you feel scared, like your life is always at risk,” said Ford.
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