In the thick of a September evening in the Far Rockaway section of Queens, 18-year-old James Scott was standing with a group of people in the courtyard of the New York City Housing Authority's Forties complex. It was just after 8 p.m. on September 27, 2019, and the night was about to take a violent turn. An unidentified man, cloaked in a black hoodie and a cap, emerged from the shadows of a dimly lit pathway and opened fire on the gathering.
The sudden eruption of gunfire sent waves of
panic through the crowd. When the chaos subsided, Scott, a new father to a baby boy named Kaiden, was found with gunshot wounds to his chest and legs. Another man, 25-year-old Corey Gasby, was discovered with a gunshot wound to his head. Emergency services rushed both men to different hospitals. Scott was taken to Saint John's Episcopal Hospital, a short distance away, but his injuries proved to be fatal, and he was pronounced dead. Gasby was transported to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in critical condition.
In the aftermath of the shooting, the community was left shaken. A makeshift memorial of crimson candles marked the spot where Scott had been killed. He was remembered as a young man on the cusp of adulthood, who was looking forward to raising his son and had plans to start working out with his father at the local community gym. The investigation into the shooting was ongoing, but no arrests were immediately made, and the gunman remained at large. The silence that fell over the neighborhood was heavy with the knowledge of another young life lost to gun violence, leaving a family to mourn and a community to hope for justice.
