A 36-year-old man shot on a Brooklyn street stumbled to his car before later dying at a local hospital, police said Tuesday.
Cleveland Clay was shot in the torso near Stanley and Pennsylvania Aves. in East New York about 8:15 a.m. Monday, cops said.
He scrambled away through a parking area to his car, which was around the corner on Sheffield Ave., cops said. First responders found the victim mortally wounded inside his car.
Medics rushed him to Brookdale University Hospital, where he died Monday afternoon. Clay lived in Springfield, Mass., according to cops.
He had no criminal record in New York City although was no stranger to Massachusetts police.
In August 2020, he was arrested for committing a shooting in Quincy, Mass., according to the Herald News. At the time of the arrest, cops found ecstasy and cocaine on him. He was charged with assault and battery by discharging a firearm, and armed robbery.
Eight years prior, in 2012, Clay led cops in Fall River, Mass., on a highway chase that ended with the suspect being found in a good Samaritan’s car, officials said.
Cops were trying to serve Clay a warrant when he sped off in his 1999 Lincoln Continental, the paper reported. During his getaway on Route 23 he got in a crash with an unsuspecting driver, who offered to drive Clay to the hospital, not knowing he was being pursued by police.
Police stopped the good Samaritan’s car a short time later, finding Clay and a firearm he was trying to hide under the vehicle’s dashboard, cops said at the time.
A motive for Clay’s killing was not immediately clear. No arrests have been made.