The New York Times :
An early morning shooting left four men dead and at least three other people wounded on Saturday at a social club in a Brooklyn neighborhood that has had a spike in gang violence.
The police said the motive for the shooting was not immediately clear. A suspect was not identified.
A police spokesman, Detective Adam Navarro, said calls came in at 6:55 a.m. about shots fired at 74 Utica Avenue in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.
He said the building was believed to be a “licensed” premise, but he had no further information. The address matched that of a private social club, according to local reports.
Four men were pronounced dead at the scene, he said, and two men and a woman were left with gunshot wounds. The dead and the injured were not identified.
Crown Heights experienced a rash of gang-related shootings earlier this year, prompting the police to step up patrols.
Through Oct. 6, the number of people wounded or killed in shootings in the 77th Precinct, covering the northern Crown Heights, had nearly doubled over the previous year, rising to 26 from 14.
The social club in the building had been the subject of complaints, according city building records.
One complaint from November 2008 said a caller stated that the first floor of the residential property was being used as commercial space, specifically a men’s club.
A follow-up complaint 15 days later indicated that a caller said the first floor had been converted into a “nightclub” and was operating seven days a week.
