Two men were shot outside a corner bodega in Brooklyn on Saturday night, leaving the sidewalk littered with shell casings — and workers and residents terrified.
The bullets flew at 11:20 p.m. at Stanley Avenue and Crescent Street in East New York, shortly after the 99 Gourmet Deli & Grill shut its doors and continued serving customers on the sidewalk with a spin-around plexiglass window, which is not bulletproof.
The two men who were shot — one age 39 and the other age 35 — were able to hobble off to the nearby Louis H. Pink Houses project, even though the older victim had a graze wound to his right leg and the younger one took a bullet to his right hip, police said.
Both were taken to the hospital. Police had no suspect information early Sunday.
At least seven shell casings were left scattered outside the bodega.
“A customer came up to the window to buy rolling papers,” said a clerk, 66, who declined to give his name.
“He pays. He was walking away. Then I hear shots. He starts running. I was in the back at the time. I didn’t come out,” he added.
“Of course, I was scared. Those were bullets, not blanks.”
A 62-year-old local resident who only gave her first name, Lurlene, also heard the shooting and then saw reflections from police sirens light up her room in the Pink Houses.
“I was trying to go to sleep,” the former security guard told The Post.
“First of all, I heard an argument. It sounded like two men arguing. I hear it all the time, so I didn’t pay it any attention. Then I heard at least five or six shots. It was like, ‘Pow! Pow! Pow!’ Then it stopped and started again — ‘Pow! Pow! Pow!’ They were fast.”
A short time later, the area was flooded with ambulances, fire trucks and police vehicles.
“It looked like [cops] were looking for something,” Lurlene said. “They had their flashlights out and were looking around my building. I saw them bringing someone out the back of my building on a stretcher.”
A second store worker, 33, said, “This is the third shooting this year close to the store.
“Sometimes you have to wonder if you are even going to be safe at work.
“Sometimes I am afraid,” the worker said. “I got kids in the neighborhood that look up to me. They have no one to go to. I mentor them — talk to them, make sure they go to school. There is nothing like a life. You gotta protect them.
“That’s why I stay,” the worker added.
But Lurlene said she is having second thoughts about remaining in the neighborhood.
“It makes me afraid. I used to work nights,” she said. “I was scared to walk at the corner. Once night falls, I try not to get out.
“I’ve lived here for four years. I don’t like New York. I am going back to Mississippi,” she said.