By Connor Adams Sheets
A leafy Flushing neighborhood was shocked early Wednesday evening, when the sunny air was pierced by up to three loud gunshots, leaving a man and woman dead in the street next to a Kissena Corridor Park playground.
Neighbors said two or three shots rang out shortly after 5:00 p.m., and police at the scene said they believed the deaths resulted from what appeared to be a murder-suicide. The bodies were found in front of 142-46 56th Rd., a short distance from New York Hospital Queens.
Victor Ortiz, a father of two who lives in an attached home less than a block from the scene of the shootings, said the victims appeared to be of Asian descent.
A neighbor, who declined to be identified, said that a Chinese American witness to the incident recounted a Chinese man was arguing with a Chinese woman in the street shortly before the shots rang out. The witness then hid in a nearby driveway, according to the neighbor, who said a gun was laying next to the man before police arrived.
The incident was the first of its kind in the area, according to Ortiz.
“Every day me and my kids are here in the park, but honestly this is a very quiet neighborhood. People usually keep to themselves,” he said. “People know each other but there’s never any altercations or anything. Nothing like this has ever happened.”
Another neighbor, who said she were on the phone when she heard the shots, has lived 35 years in a home just feet from the shooting and said she always described her stretch of 56th Road as “the nicest block in Queens.”
“All I heard was two loud bangs. It sounded like fireworks. I thought kids were shooting fireworks in the park. It wasn’t like ‘bang bang.’ It was like ‘bang,’ then pause, then ‘bang,’” she said. “It sounded like M-80s, it was louder than fireworks.”
More than 20 detectives and police officers interviewed witnesses and neighbors at the crime scene Wednesday. Queens District Attorney Richard Brown and 109th Precinct Deputy Inspector Brian Maguire also responded to the scene.
Brown said the investigation was ongoing and the relationship between the two victims was unclear.
Reach reporter Connor Adams Sheets by e-mail at csheets@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
