Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 2 Evacuated Today After Gunfire Reported

Update: The shooter has been arrested; fortunately, no one was shot. Thanks to reader “Bornhere” for the tip.

Details are sketchy, but Gothamist reports that there were unconfirmed reports of gunfire at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 2 (photo) this afternoon. Brooklyn Heights resident Thomas Hynes is quoted as saying he heard gunshots, and that there was a subsequent evacuation of the pier.

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  • memeadjuster

    Should the piers have been turned into a much different type of park, more like a nature preserve or something? I really don’t know, just pondering here I guess.

  • memeadjuster

    Such incidents were exceedingly few and far between. Virtually nonexistent.

  • Banet

    Well, they’re still exceedingly few and far between. I’m not happy about what happened on Pier 2 but one incident of gunfire does not an epidemic make. That said, if there any other major incidents of violence down there the summer I’m going to start worrying and be a lot more careful about when and where I bring my children down there.

  • Bornhere

    Yes!!! I think that could have been so beautiful and fitting; but what is there now is a sort of McMansion of “parks.” Imagine a space that might have served to teach about, preserve, and respect the past, while offering an oasis of green. What a tribute that could have been to the history and future of the Heights. What a pipe dream….

  • AEB

    Yes, I’ve always thought that divine intervention or prayer, the weight of America’s might–not sure how “Country” might otherwise be of assistance–and parents would prevent gang (or gang-like) killing.

    Well, of course, the latter does or can play a role in ameliorating social disadvantage–but your prescription in general is dotty.

  • Jim Brubaker

    Sadly, if the facts in this linked article are true, we should expect regular shootings at the basketball courts on Pier 2 going forward: http://citylimits.org/2013/08/23/planning-a-defense-for-violence-on-the-basketball-court/

  • johnny cakes

    Ditto.

  • dumbfounded

    Bornhere, so you prefer abandoned piers below the Promenade to a magnificent recreational facility that is the Brooklyn Bridge Park? You’d rather see the piers and upland covered with dense luxury housing, for which the Port Authority planned to sell the piers, and an esplanade like the one in Battery Park City? What park is not man-made and “manufactured?” The incident reported is alarming and probably won’t remain the only one this year, but we also don’t know what caused it.
    Last Sunday, I spent much time in the park and walked from Pier 6 to the Manhattan Bridge end of the park without seeing a single PEP and NYPD officer. On two consecutive days, I encountered children and adults who had traversed the “bird sanctuary” off the beach (Pier 4) and the boys were about to climb onto the partially submerged remnants of the railroad bridge. There wasn’t even a maintenance worker around, to whom I could have reported this and who could have radioed for enforcement. Furthermore, I was told by NYPD officers explicitly that their mandate doesn’t include enforcement of park rules. The other deplorable fact is the total lack of enforcement of parking rules in the Old Fulton/Furman Streets area, but that is outside the park administration’s purview.

  • Brixtony

    My window overlooked this shooting which was right at the entrance to our building – drug dealer dispute – victim died in the hospital.

  • Bornhere

    Good grief — the idea that I would prefer dense luxury housing cannot possibly be gleaned from what I wrote. And, to me, a “magnificent recreational facility” is not a park.

  • StoptheChop

    FYI– it turned out that there never would have been the dense development that the Port Authority threatened. The Piers couldn’t withstand the weight, and (IIRC) there didn’t seem to be as much interest in developing the uplands (which is also what killed the shipping business, as container ships got bigger and bigger — not enough room to maneuver upland). But I agree that it’s inexcusable that the NYPD seems to be hands-off where BBP is concerned– with the Park and NYPD pointing fingers at each other as to which entity is responsible, and with the result that neither does much of anything except shrug and make excuses.

  • StoptheChop

    Once Bloomberg mandated that BBP commit to being operationally self-sustaining before he would agree to fund its creation it, it became more of a waterfront development project than a traditional “park”. Museums don’t make money. And there was a concern that having too much passive use wouldn’t be the best outcome either, because the area would then be too deserted at night or off-season, and possibly lead to criminal activity (oh the irony). I don’t know who anticipated that BBP would morph into a such a “destination” and tourist attraction though —

  • Willow Street Watch

    This just the exact center of the problem; first you have a vocal minority put aside all reasonability and forcefully endorse a park project with ugly bnal design and who any realistic observer would conclude at least is a very questionable security condition due to the increase in the use of an area without an increase in public safety resources.

    Then you have this same element do everything to discredit the factors in society which actually provide stability and safety eg
    Morality, Ethics and Spirituality.

    And then, they complain when there is violent crime or a trend of increasing anti social behavior…

    Its very simple, even those who are most committed to the indeed takeover and reinvention of the Heights recognize the strength of a society based on the power of traditional morality, ethics and a healthy sprituial state, they almost always hate and fear these values. Much like the Spanish republicans hated traditional religious values and institutions. But the truth is you cannot have safety or security without these factors.

    What occurred down at the park is a lesson in what happens to areas, people and indeed countries which come to the twisted belief that you can one without the other.

  • jrak

    With the mayor putting the brakes on stop and frisk, we can expect to see more shootings like this in the months to come. Sadly, an innocent bystander will have to be killed or seriously wounded before that policy is reversed. And it will.

  • My Royal Highness

    Well maybe the neighborhood should have/still should be nicer to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Having lived in BH for a number of years, I can’t say I’ve ever, ever had such pleasant, law-abiding neighbors. Rather than mocking them, as much of the neighborhood did/does, they should have reveled in their pleasantness.

  • My Royal Highness

    Wow! You’re so subtle… sublime even. Actually, bottom of my bum peter the cow, some stately police presence prior to all of this would have done wonders. Young impressionable minds are impressed by the sort.

  • My Royal Highness

    You are so gross! Wilding. You do know what actually happened in that case, don’t you Brainiac 5? And Tom Wolfe’s words are notoriously, ’em how shall one put it… disgustingly one-sided when dealing with matters of skin tone. Clear enough for thee?

  • My Royal Highness

    Oh shut up. No stop and frisk means this? Are you a simpleton? Please consider what you just uttered. Yes, a stronger police presence may keep things calmer when you’re dealing with teenagers. Go for it. But that DOES NOT MEAN STOP AND FRISK. Unless of course you’re suggesting that reactionary commenters like yourself are the ones stopped and frisked. Hey, then I’m all for it.

  • Willow Street Watch

    You think he’s “reactionary”? Well how do you answer my last entry?
    Reactionary?!? Remember what I said about the Spanish Republican mentality about in the Heights?

    The truth is that other the ” right” and “left”, the liberals and the conservatives are both wrong..and both integral to the problem and indeed both integral to the decline of the Heights and for that matter, this country. Not surprising; they are two sides of the same poisonious modernist-materialist syndrome.

    We in no way need unconstitutional governmental actions to control standard crime. Street crime/disorder and governmental lawless are both problems we need to control. Why didn’t we need stop and frisk in some of the neighbors considered the worst most dangerous say, 40 years ago?

    The reasons are that prior to the present influences/leadership, people had on average a strong prrsonal morality and ethical base. Religious life was far stronger. Family life and values were far stronger. In the most ” disadvantaged” neighborhoods, a broken home,for example, was something everyone knew was something you did everything to avoid.

    Many modern people who call themselves conservatives, especially libertarians, are dismissive of real traditional values, in some ways, amost as much as liberals. Conservatives and genuine patriots are two very different things. And the social atmosphere the right/left twins breed, make no mistake, directly causes what we just saw down at the BBP.

    ONLY when this country fully discards/distroys both the present right and left and reinstalls genuine values which have sustained Western Civilization for centuries will America cease its decline

  • jrak

    If you have a better solution to the problem, please share it with us. Another teen was shot and killed by a teen in Brooklyn this evening and it won’t be the last given all the guns that are on the street.

  • Willow Street Watch

    Not quite, its all the guns in the WRONG hands. When I was a teenager a LOT of homes had guns. I never saw an atmosphere of crime and fear, because it was who had guns and far more importantly, the state of society at the time. Remember what I said about conservatives being at base the same as liberals? And that genuine patriots are something very different than patriots?

    First the right/left twins under their watch caused a flood of crime and violence. The drugs in this country continued to surge under Reagan. Then the twins want to disarm as many Americans as is possible, using as many unconstitutional practices as is possible. Of course neither wants to address the basic need for resocialization, a return to ethics, morality and traditional religious values.. No, let’s not and never even consider that.

    Yes, they’ll be a lot more violent incidents in the future but NOT because of the surface factors, its the lack of our treating the real deeper causes, which have little in truth to do with economics or education etc.

  • WIlliam Gilbert

    Are you living in the real world of Brooklyn Heights or are you just observing from Bucks County? Joralemon Street is hardly what you describe as unlandmarked and commercial! You have left the Heights and the park has changed the neighborhood greatly in a very short time. Your constant musings from 70+ miles away are hardly relevant because you no longer live here and despite your visits, you don’t have a clue.

  • memeadjuster

    Perhaps we can entice the Scientologists and Mormons to come an replace them here?

  • ShinyNewHandle

    MRH, a pair of them just rang every bell in the building, and mine twice because they’d lost track!

  • Joe A

    Idiotic response.

    Former New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly predicted last year that “no question about it, violent crime will go up” if the city were to move away from stop-and-frisk policing. He was wrong. Stop-and-frisks, which almost exclusively targeted black and Hispanic men, are down 79 percent through the first nine months of 2014. And instead of descending into chaos and crime, New York has also seen less violent crime. Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Tuesday the city’s crime rate fell 4.4 percent in the first 11 months of the year.

  • Joe A

    so when exactly was this time of “genuine morals” that you talk about? Was it when we had slavery in the country? Was it when we had child labor and sweat shops in the country? Was it when we had the incredible crime wave of the prohibition era? Time of Jim Crow laws? When being gay was a crime?

    So exactly when was this time of “genuine morals” that you opine about!

  • petercow

    Whether or not the kids convicted, raped the jogger, they were in fact, “wilding”.

    And what would describe happened at the park? A tea/social?

    As for Wolfe, you don’t understand the reference. It’s not “Bonfire of the Vanities”, it’s his essay on “radical chic”.

  • jrak

    Year to date, compared to last year, there has been a 7% increase in shooting incidents. Don’t fall for The mayor’s spin on it.

  • Joe A

    NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Dermot Shea said the number of serious felonies that make up the crime rate are, for the first three months of the year, lower than in any first quarter since the police started using the CompStat system in 1994. He also noted that the drop in crime comes as police are arresting fewer people.

  • My Royal Highness

    Dearest memeadjuster,
    the JW’s didn’t need your enticement to inhabit BH. They’d entrenched themselves far longer than you may even be able to think. I’m absolutely sure longer than your … er… roots… tried to figure out the soil. And, they are irreplaceable. Don’t try. (This is not from a fan, by the way.)

    I simply meant that the current BH congregation that is so appalled by unpleasantness and it’s ugly ilk, surely must have appreciated the genialness of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. { Beware, fair memeadjuster, Scientologists and Mormons are sometimes known to be downright complexing, curmudgeonly and their smiles are often deemed… gasp… duplicitous! Be careful, you. }