A 13-year-old Brooklyn boy who was shot on his way home from a Nets game was targeted because of his association with a street crew, police officials said.
Troy Gill, a member of the Trench Crew, was shot and killed by members of a rival gang Thursday at Brooklyn Avenue and St. Marks Avenue in Crown Heights around 10 p.m., officials said.
“He was definitely targeted,” a police source said, adding that police had video of members of rival teams.
Police said Gill was returning to the neighborhood in an Uber from the Barclays Center.
He was alone when he was shot and frantically called his mother to tell her before collapsing about two blocks away, officials told the Post. An ambulance took him to Kings County Hospital, but the boy could not be saved.
Police said four bullets struck Gill in the chest and arm.
A woman who lives in his building said Saturday that her heartbroken mother was “too distraught to talk.”
Naya Edmonds, who lives in a building next to the scene, said she had just ordered food when she heard a barrage of bullets.
“It sounded like they were shooting at each other,” the 28-year-old said.
“When I found out it was a 13-year-old kid, I thought, ‘A 13-year-old got a shot like this?'” she asked. “It’s not an adult, it’s not a group. It’s just one child.”
Nadia Lopez, an advocate for the rights of formerly incarcerated women, has lived in the building where the shooting occurred her whole life and now lives there with her 22-year-old daughter and her parents.
Lopez, 47, returned home around 11:20 p.m. Thursday to find police patrolling outside looking for shell casings.
“This particular area has had a number of incidents involving gunfire and fatalities related to gang activity,” she said.
She said that when she was a child, she and her mother were robbed at the same location.
“This is not the safest area, and even though it seems like it’s constantly changing, it’s still the same,” she said. “so sad.”
