A gunman firing an Uzi wounded six people on a Brooklyn street last night, then escaped after trading shots with pursuing cops, police said.
It was the worst incident in a wave of violence that swept the city on the first two sweltering nights of the season. Three were killed, eight stabbed and 16 shot.
The six were shot about 6:40 p.m. by a gunman who began firing at the corner of Vernon and Marcy avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Another victim broke his legs while trying to escape in what appears to be a repeat of a shooting on the same corner Thursday – in which 21 shots were fired and one person was hit three times.
Cops patrolling the area stumbled upon the gunman.
They chased him and opened fire when he turned towards them. The gunman returned the fire, then fled in car driven by another man.
As cops chased the car, the gunman threw the Uzi out the window, leapt from the vehicle and escaped on foot. The driver was arrested.
About a half hour earlier, cops found Thomas Tabrera, 18, who had been shot in the neck, side, back and stomach, lying on the street on Tinton Avenue in The Bronx. He was pronounced dead at Lincoln Hospital. Cops were looking for his assailant, a black man in a white shirt.
Earlier, Waskar Tejeda, 27, stabbed Juan Reyes, 23, to death during a fight in The Bronx, police said.
Reyes was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital. Tejeda was arrested at Bronx Lebanon Hospital, where he went to be treated for a stab wound.
The first shooting in the crime wave occurred at 9 p.m. Friday when a teenager armed with a handgun opened fire at a basketball court in the Melrose section of The Bronx, badly wounding Edwin Sanderson, 12, and Pascual Zamore, 22, The gunman was still at large.
Other crime wave victims included Darryl Baum, 34, who died of a gunshot wound to the head, and a 25-year old man who was clinging to life after being shot in the chest several times.
Two women with the 25-year-old were also shot, but suffered only minor wounds, police said.