7 Killed in Shootings Across New York City

A few minutes before 2 am on Sunday, residents of the Ingersoll Houses in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, said they were jolted by a series of pops that were the unmistakable but, as of late, less familiar sounds of gunfire.

“I heard the shots from my fifth-story room, and they were so loud, like boom-boom-boom,” said Daniel Alty, 21, who has lived for several months at Ingersoll, a public housing complex of 20 low-rise buildings near the neighborhood’s upscale rowhouses and not far from Downtown Brooklyn, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

When the shooting stopped, three men were fatally wounded. Two people shot in the head were pronounced dead at the scene. The third victim, a 76-year-old man, died a short time later at a hospital.

City officials said that crime at the houses, which had been among the most violent public housing complexes in the city, had dropped dramatically over the past year, as the city invested millions in anti-crime measures there. Until Sunday morning, the Ingersoll Houses had not had a homicide since 2013, according to New York Police Department statistics.

As a relatively new resident, Mr. Alty said, he was startled and fell to the floor. “I’ve never been so scared,” he said.

The killings were the deadliest in a string of shootings across the city over the weekend, beginning Saturday night and ending with at least seven people fatally shot.

The last homicide came just before 3 pm on Sunday at the corner of East 194th Street and Briggs Avenue in the Bronx. A 24-year-old man, identified as David Hooks, was shot in the torso and died.

“I am confident that the N.Y.P.D. is going to find the perpetrators,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters after he marched in the African-American Day Parade in Harlem on Sunday.

In the Fort Greene shooting, the police said that a man approached a group of men on Fleet Walk and opened fire. Two men, Lacount Simmons, 39, and Calvin Clinkscales, 43, were both shot in the head and died at the scene. The third man, Herbert Brown, was shot in the abdomen; he was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Mr. de Blasio said the shooting at Ingersoll Houses “appears to be criminals against criminals.”

“That doesn’t mean we take it less seriously,” he said. “But we’ve put a lot of money into Ingersoll and other housing projects, and we’re not going to let this situation stop us from continuing to drive down crime.”

Serious violent crimes like rape, assault and robbery have been decreasing in the complex, with 23 reported so far this year, down from 35 during the same period in 2014 and 50 during the same period in 2013.

Juanita Miller, 58, said that she had lived her entire life in the Ingersoll Houses and had a different perspective. She said the violence was cyclical and not affected by the influx of resources from the city.

”It comes and goes, it comes and goes,” Ms. Miller said. “It’s just a fact of living here.”

She said she had known Mr. Brown for years. He had been a presence around the complex, often playing checkers and cards in the complex’s courtyards, she said.

“He always tried to keep everybody in line,” she said. “If he see you going in the wrong direction, he’d try to send you in the right direction.”

The first homicide over the weekend also came in Brooklyn. The police were called to Church Avenue, south of Prospect Park, shortly after 5:30 p.m. on Saturday. Officers found a man who had been shot in the torso. The victim, Yasser Julio, 36, was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Near the scene, those who knew him set up a tribute on Sunday with bright pink flowers and blushing lilies placed against a cardboard box full of candles, which flickered in the wind.

Mr. Julio’s brother, Pedro Julio, said that he was a “family-oriented man,” who had two sons. “It doesn’t feel real,” Mr. Julio, 40, said.

A little before 8 p.m. on Saturday, the police found two people who had been shot on East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx. Nestor Suazo, 25, was shot in his chest and left side, and was pronounced dead after he was taken to a hospital. A woman, also shot in the torso, was taken to the hospital with critical injuries, but her condition has stabilized, the police said.

Mr. Suazo was the youngest of Catalina Martinez’s eight children. Ms. Martinez said her son worked in a supermarket, and she never knew him to be in any trouble. She said she assumed he had fallen ill or was in an accident when she was called to the hospital. But then she was taken to identify a body.

“When I saw the body,” Ms. Martinez, 67, said, fighting back tears, “it was my son. My son.”

Then, at about 10:37 p.m. on Saturday, police officers were called to the corner of East 115th Street and First Avenue in East Harlem, where they found a man who had been shot in the head. The man, Kevin Brye, 34, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the police said. The police said the motive was unclear.

Yesenia Batista, the mother of Mr. Brye’s young daughter, said she did not know of any enemies. He kept to himself, she said.

“I loved him,” Ms. Batista said. “Right now, I’m numb.”