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Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Brooklyn mom killed by stray bullet in West Indian Day parade died protecting others from gunfire

















The daughter of slain Brooklyn mom Denise Gay said Wednesday she believes police fired the shot that killed her - not the neighbor cops were battling.

"The cops started shooting and they shot my mom," Tashmaya Gay said. "I know it was. Look at the door."

Then she pointed to the bullet-ridden door of their Crown Heights home.

Gay's daughter said her mom was trying to get them inside when "she got hit."

"We all felt the shatter of the glass," she said. "My mother was the only one who got hit in the head."

Gay's brother, Les Gay Jr., who arrived Wednesday from Maryland, said her mom was a hero.

"The last thing Denise did before she died was to try to push everyone out of harms way," he said. "She tried to push everyone into the vestibule when she went down."

Gay, who was heavyset and needed a cane to get around, could not outrun the bullets.

"She got almost everyone inside when she fell into Tash's arms," her brother said. "Tash tried to wake her up. She didn't know she was shot."

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said they don't yet know who fired the shot that killed Gay around 9 p.m. Monday, shortly after the annual West Indian Day Carnival Parade.

"We're still doing ballistics tests," he said.

But Kelly defended the officers, who fired 73 shots in their confrontation with the neighbor, 32-year-old Leroy Webster. They wounded Webster twice.

"You have to look at the tactical situation," he said. "What happened is the shooter actually was shot, stopped shooting and was laying on the ground. Then he raises the gun and started shooting again."

Kelly said he has seen surveillance film footage of the shootout on Park Place and Webster "clearly shot at police, was hit, stopped shooting, and then for several seconds was just laying on the ground."

Then, said Kelly, Webster "picked up the gun and started shooting again." Police responded with "the second volley of shots," he said.

Webster, who allegedly killed 29-year-old Eusi Johnson before he got into a gunbattle with cops, fired a total of seven shots, police said.

Webster managed to lightly wound two cops - Officers Omar Medina and Avichaim Dicken. He was recovering at Kings County Hospital and had not been charged with a crime.

Gay's death capped a Labor Day weekend of shootings that left three other people dead and marred the city's annual display of West Indian pride.

Police said there were 52 shootings citywide from Friday through Monday, and 67 people were hit by gunfire. On Saturday alone, 33 people were shot.

Gay, a 56-year-old former home attendant, had long dreaded the parade, which wound through her neighborhood, relatives said.

Fearing violence, Gay kept to her stoop and texted Tashmaya, who was on the street with her boyfriend and friends.

"She said when are you coming in," the daughter said.

Tashmaya Gay said she texted back, "When the moon turns blue."

Gay quickly responded, "Oh, that's when I put my foot up your ass," the daughter said.

Tashmaya Gay said she was joking - and that she got the message. She said she quickly rejoined her mom on the stoop, near the rose garden that was Gay's pride and joy.

But that proved to be no protection from the bullets.

Nearby, a dispute between neighbors erupted into violence and Weber killed Johnson with a 9-mm. Ruger, police said.

Drawn by the noise, eight cops poured out of two vans and confronted Webster. They opened fire when he refused to put his gun down. When Webster fired back, the officers wounded him in the hip and chest, police said.

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