Cyclist, 60, is killed on Qns. street
The gunman who turned a Brooklyn gambling den into a bloodbath early Saturday started shooting because he had lost a game of dice — and his deadly rampage came to an end when a bouncer fatally shot him, investigators believe.
The furious gambler unleashed a fusillade of bullets that killed three men after becoming enraged about a dice game at the Triple A Aces club on Utica Ave. near Dean St. in Crown Heights around 7 a.m. Saturday, police sources said. Two men and a woman were shot and wounded in the chaos, cops said.
When the shooting stopped, a security guard working at the den pulled out his own weapon, killing the gunman, sources said.
The unnamed security guard was briefly taken into custody Saturday, but later released. Cops are weighing possible charges against the guard, who was defending himself and those inside the rented space, a high-ranking law enforcement source said.
Family members of the victims of the carnage were left reeling from the senseless bloodshed Sunday.
“I woke up and couldn’t believe it,” Eddie Baldwin, 35, the brother of victim Terrance Bishop, told the Daily News. “The detectives told us a guy at the club was cheated and wanted his money back.”
Bishop, 36, John Thomas, 32, and Dominick Wimbush, 47, all of BedfordStuyvesant, along with Chester Goode, 37, of Canarsie, were pronounced dead at the scene. Dashawn Kearse, 38, escaped the carnage with a gunshot wound to his hand. Police have not yet said which of the four men was the gunman. Cops recovered a 9mm. handgun and a revolver at the crime scene. Results of the victims’ autopsies were pending Sunday. Baldwin said he and his brother were still mourning the loss of their father, who died of cancer earlier this year, at the time of Bishop’s killing. “Our family is shocked — we just lost our father,” Baldwin said. “It’s two falling left and right.”
He also lamented the loss of life over mere money.
“Money has been here before you and been here after you. I mean, what’s the whole purpose?” he said.
Bishop “was a gentleman,” said Liz Owusu, 38, who owns a hair salon across the street from the victim’s home. “You hear about it so often. Mothers are burying their child. It’s a cycle you wish that would break. It’s sad.”
According to the landlord of the site where the violence erupted, Winbush was the “doorman” at the rental space, and is survived by nine children, at least one of whom was among those gathered at the shuttered space on Sunday.
“I want my dad. I want my daddy. My dad, please, please,” one inconsolable woman wailed as others tried to comfort her before angrily turning on media members. An SUV motorist mowed down and killed a bicyclist Sunday on a Queens street that lacks a stoplight and has been the focus of neighbors’ complaints.
The 60-year-old victim was hit around 2 p.m. on Cross Bay Blvd. in Broad Channel, which has a bike lane in both directions, cops said.
The cyclist was taken to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway, where he was pronounced dead, according to an NYPD spokesman.
The driver remained at the scene (photo), and the crash remains under investigation, the spokesman said.
“The guy was not responding,” said Broad Channel resident Matt Miner, who witnessed the aftermath. “People were saying he didn’t have a pulse. His eyes were just staring lifelessly, you know — empty. His neck was completely, like unnaturally, cockeyed.”
Miner’s wife, Sloane QuealyMiner, said the cyclist was carried on the car’s hood after he was hit. She added that bike lanes on the street have been temporarily removed for the past few weeks while crews performed resurfacing work.
“I know another person was killed nearby,” said QuealeyMiner. “There’s a ghost bike further down.”
The couple said Broad Channel residents have for years been calling on the city to install a stoplight on Cross Bay.
“People drag race through here,” said Miner, who lives on the street. “It’s not unusual to see people hauling a— like 70 or 80 mph through here. That’s why we’ve been asking for a stoplight.”
“It’s just messed up that someone has to die before they put in a stoplight for safety,” he added.
The crash marks the 23rd cyclist killed on city streets this year — or 25th, including those killed on motorized e-bikes.