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Son of NYPD Detective Shot Dead at Marcy Houses
By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 19, 2010
Modified Jan 19, 2010
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By
John Del Signore
Published Jan 19, 2010
Modified Jan 19, 2010
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The 19-year-old son of an NYPD detective was fatally shot in broad daylight yesterday near a playground at the Marcy Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Sean Hayes, 19, was struck in the chest around 2:30 p.m. by the Flushing Avenue playground, where children were playing on their day off from school for the Martin Luther King Day. "When I heard the shots I ran," one 10-year-old boy told the Daily News. "That's what you're supposed to do."
The teen's distraught father, Det. Sean Lawrence, a 20-year NYPD veteran assigned to the Brooklyn warrant squad, spoke to reporters outside his Queens home last night, saying, "We're trying to hold it together. We've got a lot of family here. Everybody will take a piece of my sorrow with them to make it less for me."
Hayes lived with his mother about a block from where he was killed; a cousin tells the Post, "He loved his mother and he was close with his dad as well." At the time of the shooting, Hayes was outside talking with a friend, and investigators believe the killer might have been armed with a shotgun, explaining Hayes's nine bullet wounds. At least one man was taken into custody and released last night.
Another relative, who is also a city detective, tells the News, "We don't know what happened yet," but an NYPD source tells the Post the murder was in retaliation for a prior dispute and that Hayes was the intended target. Hayes also had "a minor criminal record," according to one source.
Tagged
bed stuy
brooklyn
marcy projects
nypd
sean hayes
sean lawrence
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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