An early morning argument Saturday left a 19-year-old dead and a building on Ocean Parkway besieged with heavily armed police searching for the killer. Allen Tahiraj was shot on Ocean Parkway around 3:30am Saturday morning as he congregated with friends. One friend said, "There was a little argument and one of the kids pulled a gun."
The argument was overheard as being about "territory" and may have been drug related. Tahiraj was allegedly trying to defuse the situation after when a gun was produced by someone and Tahiraj tried to grab it, but wound up getting shot in the abdomen. The gunman and his group fled on foot and by car, with at least one person running into a building on Ocean Parkway. Police soon arrived in force. The Times described the situation:
Shortly after the shooting, emergency service officers in helmets and riot gear threw a cordon around the six-story red brick Tudor building at the shooting scene, in the belief that at least one member of the assailant’s group was hiding in his second-floor apartment. As part of the building was evacuated, the police brought in an armored vehicle, rappelling ropes and other siege equipment.
Police even drilled a hole through the ceiling and snaked a camera into the apartment. After several hours, the door to the apartment where the suspect was believed to be hiding was rammed open, but no one was inside, just a pitbull and a bird in a cage. Police continued their search in the neighborhood through Saturday night with no immediate success.
While speeding Tahiraj to Coney Island Hospital and blowing through red lights, his friends were pulled over by police. Tahiraj was then taken by ambulance to Kings County Hospital where he died. Tahiraj, who was born in Kosovo, was studying accounting in Manhattan and also worked delivering appliances. Friends described him as non-confrontational and are convinced that he was shot because he was trying to stop any violence from occurring.
