Police responded to the scene near Madison Street and Saint James Place around 7:15 p.m. on Saturday after receiving a 911 call for a report of an assault. Officers found a man in his 40s with a gunshot wound to his neck and a 30-year-old man struck in the lower body.
First responders transported both victims to Bellevue Hospital, where the man who was shot in the neck was pronounced dead. The other man is in stable condition.
Police flashlights followed the trail of evidence Saturday night to a trail of blood spattered next to pieces of clothing on the sidewalk.
Evee, a resident who lives in the nearby area where the shooting happened, told Eyewitness News the community was hit with a harsh reality.
"Firecrackers and gunshots are two different sounds, so we already knew," she said. "You're going to be scared regardless. When you're walking through the street, when you're on the bus -- you're going to be afraid."
The Lower East Side seemed quieter than usual as police tape surrounded the crime scene while police investigated a total of at least three blocks.
It is not an unfamiliar sight or feeling for Anamul Sumal, who works right outside the crime scene and remembers not long ago, just over the summer when there was another violent, but more shocking crime just steps from his place of work.
Police at that time recovered a garden tool, meat cleaver, and box cutter from a fight near a bus stop that left one man stabbed in the eye and another other in the neck.
"We're concerned about our safety, the violence is increasing day by day," Sumal said.
No arrests have been made as authorities continue their investigation.
"We got to stop the gun violence, we have to protect each other -- our kids were born here," Evee said.
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