THE TICKETS TO TROuBLE
POLICE WANT to talk to two men about a terrifying Battery Park shooting that left a ferryticket seller and an innocent bystander wounded, officials said Tuesday.
Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce called the two suspects “persons of interest” in the Monday afternoon shooting inside the lower Manhattan greenspace, officials said.
Two men selling tickets for ferry trips to Liberty Island and Ellis Island got into an argument with a third man about 3:15 p.m. Monday on Washington St., police said.
“It appears there was a dispute across the street in Battery Park about an hour prior,” Boyce said Tuesday. “The argument started again in front of 2 Washington St. It became a fist fight.”
During the clash, one of the combatants pulled out a gun and started firing, grazing a 40-year-old man — one of the ticket sellers — in the chest. The gunfire occurred just as kids from Public School 276 were being let out of school three blocks away.
Emergency workers took the wounded man to Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn with a minor wound.
“He’s not terribly injured,” Boyce said. “There was another individual, a young woman, who was shot in the leg. She’s now undergoing treatment.”
The bystander, a 34-year-old woman who was walking through the park after work, was shot in the knee. She was taken to New York Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital and underwent surgery Tuesday morning, officials said.
Boyce said he didn’t know what sparked the fight, but believed “it’s involved with ticket selling.”
On Tuesday, City Councilwoman Margaret Chin (D-Manhattan) called the shooting “the last straw in an unacceptable situation” for tourists and residents.
“For years, ticket sellers have regularly harassed and intimidated anyone unlucky enough to cross their path,” she said in a statement.
“Fights between ticket sellers over ‘turf’ have become an almost daily occurrence. This recent shooting presents an unacceptable level of danger.”
Chin wants cops and consumer affairs inspectors to tighten enforcement of illegal sales in Battery Park.
Last year, the NYPD increased its presence in Battery Park after receiving several complaints about fake ticket vendors harassing tourists.
The focus on phony vendors started in February 2016, after Arkansas tourist Jeff White, 33, suffered a fractured skull at Battery Park when he was punched in the face by an illegal vendor angered when White wouldn’t buy a Liberty Island ticket.
In May, cops arrested 12 aggressive ticket scammers during several raids across the city dubbed “Operation Tour de Force,” cops said.
The two men sought in Monday’s shooting were described as black and 30 to 40 years old.
One was said to have a heavy build and was last seen wearing a black hat, black jacket, red plaid shirt, blue jeans and black shoes. The second man is bald and was wearing a blue sweatshirt, blue jeans and multi-colored sneakers and was carrying a tan backpack.
Authorities ask anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. ticket