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Brooklyn Man Shot Dead After Recovering Son's Baseball Cap From Thieves
By
John Del Signore
Published Aug 5, 2016
Modified Aug 5, 2016
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By
John Del Signore
Published Aug 5, 2016
Modified Aug 5, 2016
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A Brooklyn man was fatally shot after recovering his son's baseball cap from a group of young thieves at a basketball court in Flatbush Wednesday night. 38-year-old Gerald Cummings was shot in the back and head around 10 p.m. outside the P.S. 6 elementary school at the corner of Snyder and Bedford Avenues. His son was reportedly with him when he was killed.
The trouble started on Saturday, when a group of young men approached Cummings's son Gerald Sealey, 17, at the same basketball court and stole his Oakland Raiders cap. (The cap, which sports a snakeskin bill, is worth hundreds of dollars.)
Sealey was at the basketball court again on Wednesday night when he saw his hat on one of the muggers' heads. He called his father, who lived nearby on East 18th Street, and Cummings reportedly came to the court, confronted the bully, and seized the hat back. But the thief and his friends followed Cummings and his son as they walked away. One of them pulled out a gun and started firing, fatally striking Cummings.
The assailants ran away. First responders arrived at the scene at 10:18, according to police, and rushed Cummings to Kings County Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. No arrests have been made, and the investigation is ongoing.
"He did what any father would do and that’s stand up for his children,” Cummings's friend and co-worker at the blood testing lab where he worked tells the Daily News. "All he did was confront the kids that beat up his son — and lost his life in the process of defending his child."
Tagged
brooklyn
flatbush
gun violence
shooting
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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