UPI
NEW YORK — Two New York police officers were shot and a man was killed during a melee at a huge barbecue gone bad, officials say.
Police were trying to disperse a crowd of about 500 people gathered at a Harlem barbecue to honor a man killed earlier when the shooting broke out, the New York Daily News reported Sunday.
Angel Alvarez, 23, shot and killed 22-year old Luis Soto at the scene on Lenox Avenue between West 144th and 145th Street early Sunday morning, the report said.
That’s when a gunfight broke out, with Alvarez firing at officer Michael Tedeschi, 36, who was saved by his vest, and officer Alfredo Vargas, 28, who was grazed in the hand, the paper reported.
Alvarez fired four shots and the officers fired about 40 rounds, police said. Two other people were wounded in the shootings. Their conditions were unknown.
Investigators were still piecing together the details of the incident but said they recovered a loaded .38-caliber revolver from Alvarez, the report said. He was taken to Harlem Hospital for treatment of his wounds. A relative said Alvarez was shot more than 20 times.
Police found shell casings that did not match those fired by Alvarez, meaning there was at least one other civilian shooter, the Daily News said.
There were “all kinds of people shooting at each other,” a detective at the scene was quoted as saying.
Tedeschi was in satisfactory condition at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and Vargas was treated at St. Luke’s Hospital and released, the paper said.
Copyright 2010 U.P.I.