An upstate man was sentenced on Monday for shooting a woman who was leaving the subway in Long Island City last year, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Snooze Brown, 23, of Middletown, New York, pleaded guilty to second-degree attempted murder, second-degree assault and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon on May 13. He was sentenced on June 10 to serve 11 years in prison plus five years’ post-release supervision.
“The defendant admitted that he was in possession of an illegal firearm which he claimed ‘accidentally’ went off – repeatedly – as he whipped it from his waistband while arguing with his girlfriend in the middle of the street,” said acting District Attorney John M. Ryan. “Although he completely missed hitting his intended target, one of the stray shots unfortunately hit a bystander – a young woman two blocks away as she exited a subway station.”
According to charges, at around 7 a.m. on Jan. 26, 2018, Brown was arguing with his ex-girlfriend inside of her Long Island City apartment and began to punch her repeatedly in the face, causing bruising and substantial pain. The ex-girlfriend proceeded to lock herself in the bathroom and used her cellphone to call her mother for help.
Brown demanded that she open the door and threatened to shoot at it. When his ex-girlfriend opened the door, she fled the apartment and Brown chased after her. He caught up to her at the intersection of 41st Avenue and 10th Street and began to argue with her and pushed her into the middle of the intersection.
When the ex-girlfriend’s mother and fiancé drove up to the scene, Brown threw a bag at the car and pulled out a gun.
Brown began to fire several shots at his ex-girlfriend, one of which struck a 28-year-old teacher, who was exiting the subway two blocks away at 41st Avenue and 21st Street. The victim told police that she remembered hearing a loud pop and immediately feeling pain in the area of her abdomen.
When she looked down, she saw a small hole in her jacket, another one in her shirt, and blood seeping from her abdominal area. EMS took her to a local hospital, where she was treated for a gunshot wound.
Charges say that Brown then fled the scene and was actively sought by authorities. He was arrested two days later by the New York-New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, who picked him up on Doughty Boulevard in Nassau County. Upon his arrest, police recovered a loaded 9mm semi-automatic pistol from his jacket.
While in custody, Brown told police, “That gun is yours now … I know I’m a fugitive. I seen myself on TV. How much time am I going to get?” He later said, in sum and circumstance, that “the car [containing his girlfriend’s mother and fiancé] tried to run me over. The gun I got locked up with today is going to match the shell casings from the shooting. I pulled the gun out of my waistband and the gun went off. It was an accident. I bought the gun from a crackhead in August. If the gun comes back to other things before August, it wasn’t me. I’ll take five years for this.”
When asked by police how many times he shot the gun during the shooting, Brown said, in sum and substance, “Well, how many shell casings did you find?”
When asked why he held onto the gun after the shooting, Brown stated, in sum and substance, “Because I’m an idiot.” He later apologized for shooting the innocent bystander.
