2 killed as gunman opens fire in Brooklyn playground

Two men were killed as a gunman opened fire inside a Brooklyn playground, police said Saturday.

The pair, who were in their 30s, were inside Howard Playground near the corner of Mother Gaston Blvd. and Glenmore Ave. in Brownsville, just steps from NYCHA’s Howard Houses, at about 10:20 p.m. Friday, when the gunman opened fire, striking both men, cops said.

“I think I heard like five shots,” a 38-year-old man who lives across the street from the park told the Daily News Saturday. “My (4-year-old) son said, ‘Oh, it’s fireworks!’ And I’m like, ‘Nah that’s gunshots.'”

“He laid back down,” he said about his son. “I don’t think he really understands it.”

Nearby NYPD officers heard shots and ran over to the playground, where they found the mortally wounded victims. The playground was littered with trash and food, and cops found two bicycles near the victims, cops said.

Victim Deon Miller, 33, was hit in the neck, police said. The second victim, Antoine Utsey, 35, was shot in the chest and ankle.

Cellphone video of the shooting’s aftermath reviewed by the Daily News shows the two men sprawled out on the ground a few feet from each other near some play equipment.

One man lay on the grass while the other lay sprawled on the asphalt. A cop was performing CPR on one of them, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. One of the victims was wearing a white T-shirt as EMS rushed him to an awaiting ambulance.

Miller, who lives in the Howard Houses, was rushed to Interfaith Medical Center, but could not be saved. Utsey died at Brookdale University Hospital.

The gunman, who was wearing a dark red hooded sweatshirt, black sweatpants and black sneakers, ran off north along Mother Gaston Boulevard before police arrived. No arrests have been made.

Cops were scouring the area looking for surveillance footage that could help track down the shooter.

A motive for the shooting was not immediately disclosed.

On Saturday, FDNY firefighters were brought in to hose down the blood stains in the playground. One of the blood pools was just a few inches from a child’s slide in the playground.

Blue medical gloves and unopened gauze pads are scattered on the ground, near a lone lawn chair.

“There’s been shootings over here before, but it’s been peaceful for a few years,” the neighbor said about the playground, adding that older teens and other groups can be heard in the playground after it closes at 9 p.m.

“(These hangouts) usually happen at night when the kids ain’t in the park,” he said. “I feel like they don’t do this with kids outside. That’ll draw more attention to them. At night they might get away with it.”

Following Friday’s double murder, all bets are off, he said.

“Now they gotta worry about not just police, they gotta worry about people in the community coming after them.”

A deli owner across the street from the park, who didn’t wish to be named, said unsavory types always hang out in the playground, which he won’t let his son use.

“This is not a place you can try to attempt to raise your children. Not at all,” the deli owner said. “Every time we come here on the weekend to work, (my son) wants to go across the street (to the playground) to play basketball. I tell him ‘No.'”

“There are more hard-working citizens and good people than there are bad seeds, but this is what happens when the actions of the bad seeds play out,” he said about the shooting.

The number of murders in Brownsville has spiked by 66% this year, from three victims to five, as of Sept. 6, cops said. The number of shootings in the area, however, have dropped, from 23 last year to 18.