Early Saturday, a tragic shooting claimed the life of a 34-year-old man at a Queens sports bar, marking the fourth violent incident at a city nightlife venue within a week, according to authorities.
Denis Nunez was inside the El Catracho sports bar on Jamaica Ave. near 184th Place in Hollis when someone began shooting at around 1:45 a.m.
Police reported that the victim, identified as Nunez, was struck by gunfire in both his stomach and left shoulder. Emergency medical services swiftly transported him to Jamaica Hospital, where, unfortunately, he succumbed to his injuries.
The shooter fled the scene and remains at large, with law enforcement actively pursuing leads to locate the suspect.
Investigators are diligently searching the area for surveillance footage that might shed light on the events leading up to the shooting and assist in identifying the perpetrator.
This homicide adds to the tally of violence in city nightspots, becoming the third shooting at such venues within the past week.
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Cops said bullets hit Nunez in the stomach and left shoulder. EMS rushed him to Jamaica Hospital, but he could not be saved. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
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Cops said bullets hit Nunez in the stomach and left shoulder. EMS rushed him to Jamaica Hospital, but he could not be saved. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Two shootings in which three people were wounded as well as a stabbing occurred within a three-hour span on Feb. 14, cops said.
During one of the shootings, Sheriff Shittu, a 30-year-old aspiring fashion designer, was fatally shot in the head after a tussle with a drunk patron who had groped his girlfriend.
The gunman opened fire inside Quilox Restaurant and Lounge in East Flatbush at around 4:25 a.m. that Saturday, cops said.
Shittu was accompanied to the club by his younger brother, Fawaz Shittu, to celebrate a friend’s birthday a day before their mother was due to arrive for a visit from their native Nigeria.
“I was screaming his name,” Fawaz said, recalling the aftermath of the shooting that killed his brother. “I was trying to wake him up.”
Sheriff got into an altercation with his killer after the stranger started drunkenly touching women, including the victim’s girlfriend, according to Fawaz.
Turned off by the disturbance, the brothers left the club less than an hour after arriving, he said. They returned minutes later after realizing Sheriff had left his cellphone behind.
As they returned, the drunk customer was being escorted out, and the club’s owner tried to convince the brothers to stay, Fawaz said.
“The owner was saying, ‘Don’t mind that person — he’s a crazy guy’,” Fawaz recounted. “A few seconds later, I heard ‘pow,’ and I looked down and I saw my brother.”
Less than three hours earlier, a fight broke out inside Tulum Brooklyn, a late-night restaurant and lounge in Bedford-Stuyvesant. During the brawl, a 23-year-old man was stabbed in the armpit with a sharp object, cops said.
The nightspot was hosting its annual “Pink Party” at the time the stabbing occurred.
Just before 2 a.m., a 36-year-old man was shot in the stomach and a 38-year-old man was shot once in each leg during a clash inside El Palenque Hall in Crotona Park East in the Bronx.
Both men were taken to area hospitals with minor injuries, cops said.
The NYPD said 2025 was the city’s safest year since the department began keeping modern-day crime stats in 1994, with a 20% drop in homicides and a 24% drop in shootings.
