The gunman who shot and wounded two innocent bystanders in a Manhattan park last Saturday may have returned to the scene of the crime to fire off more shots, police sources said Friday.
NYPD detectives are trying to determine if the same gunman from Saturday’s shooting showed up at Tompkins Square Park on Thursday, where a number of shots were fired but no one was hit.
Gunshots rang out in the park near Avenue A and E. 9th St. in the East Village about 12:47 p.m. Saturday as scores of visitors enjoyed 60-degree temperatures, cops said.
Sparrow Byrnes, 10, said he was watching a hockey game in the park from his family’s apartment window when he heard gunfire followed by a person yelling, ‘There’s a shooting! There’s a shooting! Someone has a gun!’
“I heard five bangs. I didn’t see them shoot it. I didn’t see what they looked like,” said Sparrow. “Everyone ran out of the park.”
When police arrived, they found a 26-year-old man shot in the buttocks and a 53-year-old woman with a gunshot wound to the right hip.
EMS took both victims to Bellevue Hospital, where they were treated and released.
On Thursday, shots rang out in the park once again, this time near E. 8th St. and Avenue B. The gunman was seen fleeing the park on a CitiBike, cops said. No one was hit by gunfire.
Detectives on Friday were conducting ballistics tests and scouring the area for surveillance footage to see if the same triggerman was responsible for both incidents.
“It’s definitely one of our avenues of inquiry,” a police source with knowledge of both cases said.
Detectives are also trying to determine if both shootings were connected to drug activity that’s plagued the park over the last few years.
No arrests have been made.
