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Four people were killed and three others were wounded in an early Saturday, 12 October shooting at an illegal gambling club in New York City, police said.
The six men and one woman were shot just before 7 am inside a building in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said four men were dead at the scene and the others were taken to hospitals with injuries that were not life-threatening.
One additional person was injured fleeing.
No arrests have been made, and police do not know the motive for the shootings, Shea said. He said two guns were found at the scene and more could potentially be found.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Twitter that the city “awoke to senseless gun violence.”
The Democrat added, “I've said it before and I'll say it until I can't anymore: we have an epidemic of gun violence that spares no community — and it won't stop until we get guns off our streets once and for all.”
The shooting was the second mass killing in New York in a week in a city that has seen a marked drop in homicides in recent years. Four homeless men were beaten to death by another homeless man 5 October in the Chinatown neighborhood. In 2000, there were more than 600 homicides in the city. Last year, there were fewer than 300.
The gambling operation was unlicensed but police had not previously received any complaints about the location, Chief of Patrol Rodney Harrison said.
Crime scene tape surrounded the building Saturday morning and investigators in white jumpsuits could be seen going in and out. The block where the shots rang out has empty storefronts and boarded-up buildings as well as renovated townhouses.
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