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More than a dozen gunshots turned a quiet Greenpoint corner into a combat zone early on Feb. 14, with bullets smashing car windows, tearing through residences, and leaving a 20-year-old woman bleeding on the street.
One bullet from the salvo — which erupted at the corner of Franklin Street and Kent Street at around 3:22 am — pierced the victim’s thigh, while another grazed her head, said cops, who recovered 16 shell casings at the scene.
The victim, who was treated at Elmhurst Hospital, was the only casualty in melee — but Patricia Sweeney was only a few inches shy of becoming the second.
Sweeney was sleeping in her daughter’s Franklin Street home when the barrage erupted beneath her second-floor window.
“I awoke to an extraordinary cacophony of gunfire in rapid succession — it sounded like two different guns. Then I heard the windows smash,” she said. “The trajectory of the bullet was about two feet above my head. It wound up gouging out the closet door and ended up on the closet shelf. The police pulled it out of a hat.”
Sweeney ducked for cover as other shots decimated car windows, embedded themselves in brick walls and ricocheted around the lobbies of apartment buildings.
After unleashing the volley, the shooter fled, cops said.
Neighbors claim that the shootout stemmed from an altercation inside of the movie-themed bar, the Production Lounge, which opened on Franklin Street in October.
But a bartender, who gave the name Tony, said his venue was actually a safe haven for bystanders fleeing the firefight.
“The shooter didn’t come from our place,” he said. “We had nothing to do with it. It was closing time and a bunch of people were leaving — then the shots went off and a bunch of people come running back in.”
The bar has turned over surveillance footage to police and there were no fights in the venue on the night of the shooting, Tony added.
“We didn’t kick nobody out — there wasn’t a fight here at all,” he said. “No matter what night you have going on, there’s going to be a little skirmish here and there, but we haven’t had a fight inside this place since we opened.”
Police have linked the bar to the shooting.
“There appears to have been an altercation of some kind [inside the bar],” said 94th Precinct commanding officer Dennis Fulton. “The investigation is ongoing.”
That was enough for neighbors, who filled a 94th Precinct Community Council meeting on Tuesday night, to suggest that they won’t feel happy — or safe — until the bar closes down.
“We need it to close,” said Sweeney. “My daughter is determined she is moving unless this club closes. She has a 2-year-old child here — she can’t risk it.”
Over the summer, Greenpoint residents mounted a campaign to close the Banker Street disco Studio B, which they deemed a nuisance bar. The venue continues to operate.
©2009 Community Newspaper Group
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