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Man fatally shot outside Laurelton house during BBQ

By Christina Santucci

A 20-year-old man was shot and killed outside his Laurelton home early Monday morning.

The victim’s sister, 27-year-old Kimberlyn Leslie, said she had left the house on 137th Avenue near 218th Street only 30 minutes earlier when she was called and told her younger brother, Dowayne Henry, had been struck in the shooting.

“When I got home, he was on the steps,” she said Monday afternoon while being consoled by friends and relatives. “He was laying right here.”

Police said they were responded just after 2:30 a.m. and found two men with gunshot wounds. Henry, who had been struck in his head and abdomen, was pronounced dead at the scene, and a 25-year-old man was taken to Jamaica Hospital to be treated for a gunshot wound to his back, the NYPD said.

Leslie said at the time the gunfire began Henry had been barbecuing with several friends in the yard.

“Someone just came up and started firing,” she said she was told.

Leslie said Henry worked as an assistant physical education instructor at Martin de Porres School in Elmont, L.I. and as a salesman at Champs Sports.

He adored sneakers including his beloved Jordans, loved one said.

But his true passion was basketball.

His heartbroken sister said Henry had been a hoops player while attending Martin Van Buren High School and also was on Coconut Creek High School’s squad when he moved to Florida for several years.

At 6-foot-2, Henry played the position of shooting guard, relatives said.

Henry returned to his hometown of southeast Queen to attend Monroe College, which has campuses in the Bronx and Westchester, and was planning to transfer to York College in Jamaica.

Leslie said the family had not yet begun planning funeral arrangements for her brother as the city’s medical examiner needed to perform an autopsy.

Reach managing editor Christina Santucci by e-mail at timesledgerphotos@gmail.com by phone at 718-260-4589.