Nichelle Thomas Park Slope woman, 52, shot dead by former lover, Latisha Bell, 38 in the back of the head corner of Fourth Ave. and St. Marks Place. Suspect killed victim after tumultuous two decade relationship.
A 52-year-old woman died Wednesday after her former lover shot her in the head after running up behind the unsuspecting vicim along a Brooklyn street corner according to NYC authorities.
Nichelle Thomas was nearing the corner of Fourth Ave. and St. Marks Place in Park Slope when a ‘woman she used to date’, Latisha Bell, 38, ran up behind her and shot her in the back of the head, about 1 p.m on the sidewalk in front of a deli, authorities said.
‘I heard two shots, looked out the window saw the cops and ambulance and came out and just saw everyone else looking around trying to see what was going on,’ said Tiffany Williams, 39, who lives across the street according to the nydailynews.
Williams saw the EMTs at work.
‘I saw them doing chest compressions when they got her on the stretcher,’ the witness said. ‘I saw just the arm and chest compressions then I saw them put her in the ambulance and drive off.’
A Normal day in de Blasio’s NYC
Disturbing video: A woman was killed during a mid-afternoon shooting in Park Slope
GRAPHIC!#Brooklyn#parkslope#NewYorkCity #nypd#GunControl#deblasioResign #deBlasioMustGo #Bailreform #DerekChauvin#BreakingNews pic.twitter.com/tXgB3rasnr— NY Actions (@NY_ACTIONS) April 21, 2021
‘I heard one shot and knew it was from a gun,’
Medics rushed the woman to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, but she died at 1:26 p.m.
Police say the un-known female suspect, later identified as Bell, was last seen running away from the scene armed with a silver handgun.
Hours later, the suspected shooter surrendered to cops at the 78th Precinct station house with her lawyer the nypost reported.
‘I am turning myself in for the homicide,’ Bell told police, according to the criminal complaint. ‘The gun is inside the bag. I need to talk to the homicide detective. I did the shooting.’
‘I heard one shot and knew it was from a gun,’ local bodega cashier, Mohammed Ali told via the nypost.
Ali, 57, said he ran outside and saw, ‘a lady lying face-up on the sidewalk and above her eyes was a hole with blood coming out.’
‘I’ve been working here for 12 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,’ he said. ‘It’s scary. If the bullet hadn’t hit her, I might have been the one hit.’
‘They were always fighting’
A neighbor said the victim, a mother of two and her former girlfriend, Latisha Bell, had a toxic relationship. The pair who ended their relationship two years ago had been involved for two decades.
‘They lived together for years,’ the neighbor told via the nydailynews. ‘But they were always fighting. They had a big falling out about three years ago and she left.’
Ali, the store clerk, said Thomas was a regular at the store for nearly a decade.
A neighbor of the victim told the nydailynews that the two were involved in a combative long-term relationship, sharing an apartment near the deli until the couple split. Bell landed in an apartment near Yankee Stadium, in the Bronx, where neighbors said she lived alone and kept mostly to herself.
‘She’s a quiet type, doesn’t bother anybody,’ said building resident Junior Rodriguez, 57, who lived across the hall. ‘She seemed normal. She minded her own business.’
Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Wilfredo Cotto revealed in court on Thursday that there were 13 domestic incident reports over the course of the former couple’s long time together — with Bell identified as the aggressor in 10 of them.
Park Slope crime stats
Wednesday’s gun violence was the first shooting and the first homicide in Park Slope this year and the neighborhood is located in one of the city’s least violent precincts where a predominantly upwardly mobile population live.
Overall crime in Park Slope is down by 5% as of Sunday, although cops have seen a 50% increase in assault complaints, from 18 last year to 27 this year, statistics show.
The shooting was the first recorded in the neighborhood this year, NYPD data shows, and comes as the Big Apple experiences a nearly yearlong surge of gun violence.
Police are asking anyone with information to call CrimeStoppers.
