Trini shot dead in Brooklyn

A TRINIDADIAN was shot dead at a birthday party in Brooklyn, New York, early on Sunday morning. A woman, 21, was shot in the left foot during the gunfire. She was reported to be in a stable condition at King’s County Hospital.

An angry stranger with a bizarre grudge — and a gun — opened fire at the Brooklyn birthday party killing a Washington Heights construction worker and wounding a woman, cops said. The gunman walked up to Trinidadian Jude Brathwaite, 29, the father of a two-year-old son, at the Flatbush bash and asked if they knew one another, witnesses said.  After Brathwaite said no, the man left — only to return about an hour later with a silver pistol. He shot Brathwaite in the chest and the unidentified woman in the foot, cops said. “I was crying, Jude was by me,” his friend and co-worker Yohan Andrew, 21, told the New York Daily News. “I didn’t expect to lose Jude like that.”

Andrew, Brathwaite and another co-worker arrived at the party in a basement on Lincoln Road, near Nostrand Avenue  about 4 am on Sunday. After his initial conversation with Brathwaite, the  gunman, in his 20s, returned about an hour later  and promptly threatened to slap Brathwaite, witnesses said. As a friend of Brathwaite tried to separate the men, the furious stranger cried for blood.” I heard, ‘Let me go, let me kill him,’” said Jenna Kelly, 30, who lives upstairs from the shooting scene. “I came out and said, ‘Oh my God, they are fighting.’” The stranger pulled out a gun, and Brathwaite tried to flee.  “Jude was going to the door and there was a ‘Pop!’ said Andrew. “When I came up I saw Jude lying on the floor. I said ‘Jude hold on!’ Then I called 911.” Kelly watched Brathwaite’s friends vainly try to revive him by pressing down on his chest. “Stay with me, stay with me,” she heard them plead.

Brathwaite was taken to Kings County Hospital, where he died at 5:45 am. The 21-year-old woman who was shot in the left foot during the gunfire was in stable condition there. Yesterday, grief-stricken relatives and friends jammed Brathwaite’s West 151Street apartment. “We never expected him to go that way, he was loved by everyone,” said his mother, Gemma Hadaway, 58, who migrated from Trinidad years ago. Neighbours said the basement where the party was held is regularly rented out for events and hadn’t been a source of trouble — until Sunday. Police are searching for the suspect.