NEW YORK — A Manhattan federal prosecutor dining al fresco and a nearby pedestrian both dodged stray bullets after a gunman opened fire on a Brooklyn spring evening, police said Saturday as the city’s gun violence numbers continue to mount.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mollie Bracewell, 34, was eating outside the Thai restaurant Muse on Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights when grazed across the face and cheek by a bullet fragment at 9 p.m. on Friday, police said.
The second victim, 31-year-old Benjamin Bustamante, was walking with his wife when struck by a bullet in the right foot as the couple returned to their car after dinner, according to his mother.
The wounded Staten Island man, with his three center toes shattered by the blast, remained hospitalized Saturday.
“He says it happened so fast,” said mom Patria Bustamante, 72. “He said they thought it was fireworks, and then all of a sudden he said, ‘I have something in my shoe.’”
Bustamante didn’t realize what happened until a passerby helped him remove his shoe and they both saw the blood, his mother recounted. Her son is also a federal employee, working as a Food and Drug Administration agent.
“It’s serious, it’s scary,” the victim’s mother continued. “I couldn’t sleep. I was up until 4 a.m. ... He said, ‘I’m grateful I’m still here.’ He’s got a good perspective.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mollie Bracewell was eating outside Thai restaurant Muse on Washington Ave. in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, when she was grazed across the face and cheek by a stray bullet fragment at 9:00 p.m. Friday.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mollie Bracewell was eating outside Thai restaurant Muse on Washington Ave. in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, when she was grazed across the face and cheek by a stray bullet fragment at 9 p.m. Friday.
The wounded man told his sister Emma Wilson that he saw Bracewell holding her face after she was clipped by the fragment.
“The incredible godsend is if she was leaning in a little bit, who knows what would have happened to her?” said Wilson, 44. Her brother will need crutches to leave the hospital Sunday and physical therapy once back home.
Bracewell, a Harvard Law School graduate who joined the U.S. attorney’s office in 2017, told a Daily News reporter Saturday that she was with family and did not want to comment on the near-miss.
She is a prosecutor in the case against accused Sarah Lawrence College sex cult leader Lawrence Ray and the cold case murder of Ditmas Park cafe owner Joshua Rubin, who was shot, burned and dumped in rural Pennsylvania.
The restaurant’s front door was shattered in the gunfire, and remained without its glass Saturday afternoon.
The gunman bolted and fled into a nearby building where police found Kwan Joyner, 17, with a handgun. Police said it was unclear if he was the triggerman, and Joyner was initially charged only with weapons possession.
His Brooklyn Criminal Court arraignment was pending Saturday.
Joyner, a Brooklyn resident, was previously arrested for gun possession on New Year’s Eve 2020. He was also twice busted for robbery, first in 2015 and again five years later, according to police sources.
The arrest came as cops released the latest crime statistics, showing a 77% increase in shootings this year — with 512 through Friday in compared to 288 across the same stretch last year.
According to police, there were 580 victims in this year’s shootings and 327 in the 2020 armed incidents.
