17-year-old shot at prom party inside flashy Brooklyn residential high-rise
A 17-year-old boy was shot during a prom party inside a luxury high-rise apartment building in Brooklyn Thursday night, according to police and sources.
The teenager was shot in the torso just before 8:40 p.m. at a party inside PLG, a flashy 26-story residential tower at 123 Linden Blvd. near the border of East Flatbush and Prospect Lefferts Garden.
He was rushed to Kings County Hospital in stable condition, police said.
A neighbor said he saw two young kids running down the block after hearing what he initially believed to be the sounds of fireworks.
“I was standing across the street talking to one of my neighbors. I thought it was firecrackers. And another guy said, ‘No, I think I heard some gunshots,’” the 61-year-old resident who only gave his nickname, Sharkie, told The Post.
“That’s when I saw them running down the block, two young kids, and they were going fast.”
There have been no arrests and the investigation is ongoing, police said.
“These kids don’t have any sense of upbringing,” Sharkie said. “You don’t know who’s got what, who’s doing what. I love life, but these kids have no clue.”
Apartments in the 467-unit building where the gunfire erupted first went on the market in 2020. A studio is currently listed at $2,845 a month while a two-bedroom unit is going for $4,495, according to StreetEasy listings.
Designed by Hill West Architects, the tower offers a slew of amenities including a rooftop pool, indoor pool and hot tubs, steam rooms and saunas, a full-service gym, half-court basketball, a golf simulator, a private party room, dog run, children’s playroom, co-working lounge, movie theater, and 24-hour-attended front desk.
Despite the fancy perks and 24-hour doorman, residents and neighbors said the building has been a hotbed of violent incidents and safety issues.
“The building is nice on the exterior but everything that glitters is not gold,” said tenant Dwaine Williamson, who rents a one-bedroom in the PLG for $3,400 a month.
“They have all the bells and whistles — the pools, the amenities, everything else,” he added. “But the safety issue is the issue,”
Williamson, 46, said the doormen let just about anybody walk into the building.
“We don’t even know if the kid lived in the building or not,” he said of the shooting victim. “Unfortunately, they let anybody in this building.”
“That’s not the first incident that’s happened over there,” Sharkie said. “There’s always something going on there, but this was incredible.”
Williamson said he moved in in April 2021 and has seen or heard of countless crimes since.
“There’s been a rash of different incidents,” he told The Post. “We had a slashing last year. We had someone robbed of 40 grand. We had somebody jump off the roof. We had someone pushed out a fourth-story window.”
Tenants have complained about the safety concerns to the management but “nothing gets answered,” according to Williamson.
“A building that has 5,000 people living in it, you’d think they would cater to our needs, especially with the exorbitant rents,” he said.
“The management has sent emails saying they’re going to upgrade the security, ask for IDs, but if you have one person behind a desk and they let everyone up, that’s defeating the purpose.”
Additional reporting by Larry Celona
