A surprise homecoming ended in a horror show for a 34-year-old MTA employee shot by a stray bullet outside the Brooklyn apartment complex where she grew up — a place she’s now “leery” about returning to, her father said Saturday.
“My daughter comes over here to see me — I didn’t know she was coming — and she gets shot!” retired MTA track worker Lawrence Doxen said about the Wednesday afternoon shooting at the Sumner Houses.
His daughter Shanay was about to visit Doxen, 66, when shots were fired at a group of men near a basketball court in the 95-degree heat by the corner of Marcus Garvey Blvd. near Park Ave. around 3:30 p.m.
A stray bullet tore through Shanay’s upper arm, her father said.
Doxen had just heard the shots and saw police cruisers out his window when someone began pounding on his door, he recalled.
“I see the cops out there. Next thing I know, five minutes later I hear Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!” he said.
At the same time, his daughter’s number popped up on his phone.
“I grab my phone and I kinda see my daughter’s name coming up here,” he recalled. “I was like, who’s knocking on my door? And I’m like, I’m not answering the door because I just heard the shots! Then the lady downstairs, she was like, ‘Dox Dox, your daughter got shot!’”
Kerry Burke
Suspects involved in the shooting of three men and a woman fled in the white Santa Fe Hyundai before crashing into a black Infinity around the corner from the crime scene on Sept. 6, 2023.
Doxen opened the door to find Shanay and the downstairs neighbor. His daughter was bleeding from her arm.
Despite her wound “she wanted to see me,” the retired MTA employee said. “She said, ‘I wanted to see my father.’”
The bullet passed through Shanay’s arm. The young mom, an MTA cleaner, is currently on the mend, her proud dad said.
“She’s good now. She’s kind of leery because we go to the park a lot,” he said. “She is in shock. That’s what people don’t think about. Trauma, you know?”
About six shots were fired, neighbors recalled. Three men ages 34, 26 and 21 were struck with shots to the back, stomach and chest, respectively, police said.
“There were shots and smoky pops,” the witness, a local man who gave his name as Jay, told the Daily News Wednesday. “There was a guy lying on the ground, he was on his back bleeding. His friend was kneeling, holding himself, he was shot in the buttocks. You could see the blood.”
The man shot in the stomach remained in critical condition Saturday, cops said. The other two men were expected to survive.
Police believe the gunman, who jumped out of a Hyundai Santa Fe, were targeting the three victims and accidentally hit Shanay with a stray round.
The gunman jumped back into the car, which sped off and crashed head-on with a black Infiniti QX60 less than two blocks away near the corner of Myrtle and Throop Aves.
Cops hot on the heels of the suspects arrested three men at the scene after they had run into an area building.
Ben Foster, 30, who is believed to be the shooter, was charged with attempted murder and weapons possession as well as burglary and tampering with physical evidence. An accomplice, identified as Seven Jones, 23, was charged with burglary and tampering with physical evidence, cops said.
The arraignments for the two men were pending Saturday.
Shanay was just getting off of work when she decided to surprise her father with a visit, her dad said. She’ll be on medical leave for a while as she recovers, he said.
“She can’t work,” he said. “She’s a cleaner. She’s going to have to lift up garbage bags and hopefully there’s no nerve damage and stuff like that. So it’s going to be a while.”
The emotional scars may take longer, he said.
“It’s like a process right now. I still think she don’t really know what she really been through,” he said. “That’s what people forget when people get shot. The psychological effect.”
Thomas Tracy, Rebecca White
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