Cops: Zero to go on

Shot in 1987, man dies in 2015, and there are no records

THE DEATH of a Brooklyn man shot in the back and paralyzed three decades ago has been ruled a homicide — but cops have to overcome a pair of obstacles just to launch an investigation.

Police haven’t been able to find their case file from back then, which may have witness accounts or a description of the gunman. And the hospital has no record of the shooting, which cops say happened on April 30, 1987.

Irving Carter, 62, was admitted to Coney Island Hospital on Sept. 30, 2015, suffering from gangrene in the leg, sepsis and bleeding from an artery near his aorta. He told medical staff that he was shot in the 1980s. Carter was later transferred to a hospice in Manhattan Beach and died on Oct. 8.

The city medical examiner on April 14 ruled his death a homicide, linking complications from gunshot wounds to his demise.

Carter’s cousin, Vivian Beale, told the Daily News he was stunned to learn his death had been ruled a homicide.

“I’m speechless,” she said. “He died at Coney Island Hospital. I talked to him. He was sick.”

According to relatives, Carter said he was walking down the street after work when he bumped into a woman at Willoughby and Throop Aves. in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The woman threatened to tell her boyfriend that Carter touched her. Carter told relatives he apologized, but as he turned and started to walk away he was shot twice in the back. He was rushed after the shooting to Brooklyn Hospital where doctors operated on him but did not remove the bullets.

Police have not yet been able to find a record of the incident.

“There is no report on file,” said a police source with knowledge of the case. “We’re not even sure if it was reported back then. Everything we’re getting is coming from the victim’s family.”

Detectives from the 79th Precinct and Brooklyn North Homicide are investigating the fatal shooting, an NYPD spokesman said.

The hospital has no record of the shooting because there are no records from back then, sources said.

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Irving Carter was taken to Coney Island Hospital (above) in 2015, then to a hospice where he died. The hospital he was taken to after 1987 shooting, Brooklyn Hospital, has no record of him; neither do police.