An 87-year-old woman was fatally shot Sunday on West 31st Street in Coney Island – right around the corner from the site of another deadly shooting a week earlier.
Police from the 60th Precinct said that they were called to 2960 West 31st Street outside the Surfside Houses at 5:40 p.m. on August 2 where they found Anna Surman sprawled on the ground. She had been shot in the neck.
The 87-year-old was rushed to Lutheran Medical Center where she died of her injuries an hour later.
Cops were still searching for the gunman as this paper went to press. No motive has been released as to what sparked the shooting which ended Surman’s life.
This is the second shooting death to take place in the western end of Coney Island in the last two weeks.
On the previous Sunday, 19-year-old Micuan Serrano was shot in the head and torso at the corner of Surf Avenue and West 30th Street during a 3:40 a.m. confrontation with an unidentified assailant, officials said.
Surman’s death is the eighth homicide to take place in the 60th Precinct since the beginning of the year. Many of these killings have occurred in the precinct’s western end.
Three homicides were investigated by the beginning of August in 2008, officials said.
With local ministers and religious leaders by their side, residents in Coney Island’s western end voiced their concerns regarding crime and violence in the area recently during a special meeting with Inspector Robert Johnsen, the commanding officer of the 60th Precinct.
The violence in Coney Island’s western end has been so prevalent of late that Johnsen has created an “impact zone” where that section of Coney Island is flooded with beat cops, he told those assembled.
Cops are asking anyone with information regarding Surman’s death to come forward.
Calls can be made to the NYPD CrimeStoppers hotline at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.