MANIAC GOES
Cab rider mortally wounded, 4 others shot in B’klyn
A GLASSY-EYED Brooklyn gunman shot five people — leaving one brain dead — and pistol-whipped three more early Saturday in a maniacal spree of bloodshed and botched robberies, sources said.
The erratic attacker left a nine-block trail of terror through Flatlands before he was busted near the last stop of his one-man crime spree — the Nigerian nightclub 9jaVilla.
“This guy went on a tear,” a witness from inside the club told the Daily News. “It was terrifying.”
The 19-year-old would-be robber, identified by sources as Michael Magnan, earlier targeted a random nearby house, another neighborhood nightclub and a livery cab caught at a red light, police sources and witnesses said.
A 23-year-old cab passenger, identified by a family friend as Nikita Grebelskiy of Forest Hills, Queens, took a point-blank bullet to the head from the deranged suspect about 2:30 a.m. after the gun- man fought with the driver.
Grebelskiy was left brain dead, his mother said.
The livery cabbie, who punched the attacker in the face, was distraught hours later that he didn’t do more.
“I should have took that gun from him,” said a dejected Eric Martine, 33, of Gateway Car service. “I should have thought faster.”
Less than an hour earlier, the gunman had appeared from the darkness and opened fire on 10 people gathered on an E. 54th St. front porch. Standing across the street, the suspect fired one shot before pausing — and then blasted away without ut- tering a single word.
“I heard, ‘Pow! Pow! Pow!’ and I wondered if he’s going to murder everybody,” said Patrick Myrie, 41, who had just gone inside the house.
“I tried to hide, and then I was scared,” he said. “I heard everyone running.”
Magnan, dressed in a white Tyvek jumpsuit, appeared dazed and confused as he was taken out of the 63rd Precinct in handcuffs and ankle shackles.
“I didn’t shoot nobody,” he said before climbing inside a waiting ambulance.
Charges were pending early Sunday as investigators pieced together their case. Sources said Magnan lives in the neighborhood and has seven arrests on his record dating to 2010, including charges for attempted murder and possession of a firearm.
His clothes and shoes were taken by cops and placed into an evidence bag. A spent .380-caliber shell casing was found inside a shoe, police sources said. Cops also said they recovered a handgun that matched the shell — its magazine empty — near the arrest scene.
The gunman made his first stop around 1:30 a.m., when he targeted a group of family and friends hanging out on the porch of their home.
Marcia Heron, 51, said they were sitting outside in the aftermath of a rainstorm when the gunfire erupted — and everyone ran for their lives.
“Everyone stumbling and bumbling over everyone,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Her daughter Tanesha Lywood, 34, was shot in the stomach and thigh, and three other family members suffered less serious gunshot wounds.
The gunman fled, resurfacing twice within the next hour. He smashed two bouncers with his
gun after demanding money at the eSavoy Lounge on Flatbush Ave., a source told The News.
He then spotted Martine’s cab, with Grebelskiy and his sister, Elizabeth Filatova, in the back seat, stopped at the intersection of Utica Ave. and Avenue O, and ran to it.
“My window was open, he pulls a gun and says, ‘Give me your money,’ ” Martine recounted. “I was like, ‘I ain’t got no money,’ and then he goes through my pockets with the gun pointed at me.”
The assailant then turned his gun on the passengers, demanding their cash and jewelry.
“That’s when I punched him and hit the gas,” Martine said. “He (shot) out the back window, and shot the kid in the head.”
Grebelskiy’s weeping mother kept vigil at Kings County Hospital.
“It’s the most terrible thing in the world that can happen,” the mother said, her eyes welling with tears. “His brain is dead. According to the state of New York, he’s dead.”
While cops responded to the shooting scene, the gunman continued on his crooked path, pistol-whipping a bouncer at 9jaVilla.
The shooter then walked inside and fired a shot into the ceiling — apparently the last one in his weapon.
“He was shaking the gun around, and the gun was smoking a little,” said a witness at the club. “He was looking around, glassy-eyed, and he kept squeezing the trigger — but nothing was coming out.”
The suspect, after fleeing the club, was trailed by bouncers who flagged down police heading to the cab shooting. They led cops to the suspect, who was quickly cuffed and taken away. With Joe Kemp, Corinne Lestch and James Arkin