Taste of the City Lounge mass shooting leaves 3 dead, 8 injured, multiple gunmen suspect at Crown Heights, Brooklyn restaurant lounge plagued with ongoing problems, prior shootings, disturbances and young ‘gang’ crowd according to locals.
A mass shooting involving multiple gunmen in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights district at a restaurant lounge left 3 dead and eight injured during the early morning hours of Sunday.
More than one shooter opened fire in the Taste of the City Lounge on Franklin Ave. near Carroll St. in Crown Heights just before 3:30 a.m., cops said.
🚨NYC Mass Shooting
11 individuals shot early Sun morning at Taste Of The City Lounge in Crown Heights Brooklyn. NYPD responded Level 1 mass casualty. 3 dead 8 transported to hospitals. Witnesses reported multiple shooters. Suspects are still at large. pic.twitter.com/CeaVyYDDn9 pic.twitter.com/DMCKJWExRV— #TheFreeHawaiian (@free_hawaiian) August 17, 2025
36 bullet casings recovered, multiple gunmen involved
‘We have multiple shooters involved in this shooting and we have recovered 36 shell casings,’ NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a press briefing outside the lounge. ‘It’s a terrible shooting that’s occurred.’
Surveillance footage showed three men sprinting from the scene shortly after the triple slaying occurred.
Cops recovered one firearm close by the lounge near Bedford Ave. and Eastern Parkway, she said. Investigators were reviewing surveillance video but had yet to make any arrests as of late Sunday morning.
Pierre Tutu, 50, heard the shots while standing near his parked car down the street, he told the nytimes.
‘There were a lot of them,’ he said. ‘People were flying all over the place trying to save their lives.’
‘I saw people, shot, all over the place,’ he added. ‘Sitting, waiting for help, screaming, crying.’
Crown Heights lounge plagued with problems
The dead include two men, ages 35 and 27, along with a third male whose age is not yet known. All three died at the scene the nydailynews reported.
Five men and three women were wounded but survived, the oldest 61 and the youngest 27, according to police sources. They were all hospitalized and are expected to recover the outlet reported.
The incident is the second shooting at the club in less than a year. A 28-year-old man survived being shot in the back and arm in front of the club about 4 a.m. Nov. 17, according to police.
In February, cops released surveillance footage of a suspect they were still looking for in that shooting and asked the public’s help identifying him.
Taste of the City serves Caribbean fusion cuisine and has a full bar with hookahs, DJs and live music.
The venue which first opened in 2022 has been plagued with problems, with one local telling the nypost, ‘It’s not surprising. Anyone who says they’re shocked is lying for the cameras,’ the woman said, attributing the violence to ‘gang kids.’
Violent crime in NYC an anomaly…
The explosion of violence at the lounge Sunday was the second mass shooting in New York City in three weeks. On June 28, Shane Tamura opened fire with an assault rifle in a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper, murdering an NYPD officer and three others before killing himself.
‘They’ve been fighting lots of times, all summer. Yelling and screaming at each other. It’s just over and over,’ she said.
Another local, who lives several doors down from the lounge, said he frequently hears arguments and fights at the venue.
‘I hear them cursing and screaming. You can hardly sleep without hearing them yelling. Arguing when they take it outside,’ the man told the nypost.
The super of the building opposite the lounge said it had been different under previous management.
‘The guy who owned it before, he was good,’ he said. ‘It was an older crowd, and there really wasn’t much trouble, but then he sold it, and it got bad. Young people yelling every night.’
The violence comes as the city has seen significant drops in violent crimes through Aug. 10 compared to the same period last year, including a 24% drop in murders and a 21% drop in shootings.
‘We have the lowest number of shooting incidents and shooting victims seven months into the year that we’ve seen on record in the city of New York,’ Tisch said Sunday outside Taste of the City.
‘Something like this is, of course, thank God, an anomaly. And it’s a terrible thing that happened this morning but we’re going to investigate and get to the bottom of what went down.’
