A 52-year-old woman walking near a public housing complex in Brooklyn was grazed by a stray bullet Monday afternoon, the third innocent bystander shot in the borough in less than two days.
The woman was on Ralph Avenue near the Glenwood Houses, a New York City Housing Authority complex in the Flatlands neighborhood, when gunfire erupted around 1:10 p.m. A bullet struck her in the left arm. Three male suspects fled the scene on scooters, and as of Monday, no arrests had been reported. First responders rushed her to Brookdale Medical Center, where she was listed in stable condition. The NYPD confirmed to the New York Post that she was an innocent bystander, not the intended target.
She was not the only one. Less than 36 hours earlier, a mother of five named Sofronie Hartzog took a stray bullet in the back outside a Crown Heights bar and died from her injuries. A 34-year-old man standing nearby was shot in the gut during the same incident. Police identified both as unintended targets. Three bystanders, two shootings, zero arrests, all inside a single weekend-to-Monday window in one New York City borough.
The violence that killed Hartzog began around 2:23 a.m. Sunday outside the Ooh La La Lounge, a bar near Bergen Street and Howard Avenue in Crown Heights. Police said a fight broke out among roughly 100 people, and at some point during the chaos, someone opened fire. An errant round hit Hartzog in the back. Another struck the 34-year-old man in the abdomen.
Hartzog managed to run inside the bar before collapsing in a restroom. First responders transported her to Brookdale Medical Center, the same hospital where the Monday victim would later be treated, but Hartzog did not survive.
Her aunt, Melinda Hartzog, spoke to the Post about the loss.
"They killed her, that's what happened."
Melinda Hartzog said her niece left behind five children. Jennifer Ortiz, a neighbor, described Sofronie as a devoted mother who was "always putting her well-behaved kids in nice outfits." A woman raising five children, walking near a bar on a summer night, cut down by a bullet meant for someone else in a brawl she had nothing to do with.
NYPD year-to-date data shows that shooting incidents in the 63rd Precinct, which covers the Flatlands crime scene, have dropped 60 percent compared to the same period in 2025. On paper, that is a significant decline. On the ground, a 52-year-old woman still caught a bullet walking down the street in broad daylight on a Monday afternoon.
Falling statistics offer cold comfort to people who live in neighborhoods where gunfire can find them on a sidewalk at 1 p.m. or outside a bar at 2 a.m. The 60-percent drop did not prevent three suspects from opening fire near a public housing complex and then riding away on scooters with apparent impunity. It did not save Sofronie Hartzog. And the NYPD has not announced any arrests in either case.
The condition of the 34-year-old man shot in Crown Heights has not been publicly disclosed. The identities of the scooter-riding suspects in Flatlands remain unknown. No one has been named, charged, or held accountable for any of the weekend's violence against bystanders.
Sofronie Hartzog's death is the sharpest edge of this 48-hour stretch. A brawl involving roughly 100 people spills into gunfire outside a bar in the middle of the night, and the person who pays the ultimate price is a mother of five who had no part in the fight. Her family is left to grieve. Her children are left without her. And the shooter, or shooters, remain unidentified.
Melinda Hartzog put it simply:
"She was the best person in the world."
Monday's victim in Flatlands survived, but only by the margin of a bullet's trajectory, grazed in the arm instead of struck in the chest or back. She was doing nothing more than walking near a housing complex in the middle of the day. The suspects vanished on scooters before anyone could stop them.
When innocent people cannot walk a Brooklyn sidewalk without catching a stray round, and the suspects ride off without consequence, the city's leaders owe more than a statistical press release, they owe answers, arrests, and accountability.
