Sedan is brushed for fingerprints outside club in Mariners Harbor.Yolanda Mapp, 31, was shot about 2:30 a.m. today outside Shooters Sports Lounge at 2180 Forest Ave., a police spokesman confirmed.
In a disturbing twist, the alleged gunman’s sister killed a prominent Staten Island attorney outside the same nightclub when it operated under a different name, in 2006.
Public records list an address in Mariners Harbor for Ms. Mapp, who is the mother of a teenage son, relations and friends wrote on social media sites, where they decried the violence.
She was taken to Richmond University Medical Center, where police said she was in critical condition. But a hospital spokeswoman said this afternoon they were not treating anyone by her name.
Police identified the suspect as ex-convict Baydr Taylor, 32 of 339 Harbor Rd. in Mariners Harbor.
Baydr is the brother of Taliyah Taylor, who was high on Ecstacy and marijuana in October 2006 when she mowed down and killed Larry Simon as he was crossing Forest Avenue on the way to Chic-N-Bones, the previous name of Shooters.
Baydr Taylor was apprehended this afternoon when police swarmed a house in Stapleton, near the corner of Van Duzer and Young streets, and an NYPD helicopter swooped low overhead.
According to police sources, several people came out of the house to surrender as a diversionary tactic while Taylor fled out the back of the house. But instead of finding an escape path, he found himself surrounded by officers of the Emergency Services Unit waiting behind the house. Taylor and the other people at the residence were taken into custody.
He was charged last night with assault, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon.
At the time of the shooting, Taylor was still under federal supervision, following his release in 2009 after a 70-month term for gun trafficking; one of the weapons was used in a slaying in Stapleton.
On Forest Avenue today, police spent hours combing through the dirty parking lot outside Shooters, littered with half-finished Heineken beer bottles and discarded drinks. A black high-heeled shoe lay in the middle of the lot.
Police tape blocked off the entrance to Shooters Lounge, and crime scene officers dusted two cars for fingerprints. At least three evidence markers sat in the parking lot, and an NYPD tow truck removed an older-model Infiniti sedan with North Carolina temporary plates.
A man whose co-workers were outside the bar during the shooting said the gunman showed up wearing a bulletproof vest. The man, who did not want to be identified, said the arrival could not get into the crowded bar; Ms. Mapp told him to calm down, the man said, and she was shot.
Jason Butler works upstairs at Joe Broadway’s Billiards and was there when the shooting happened.
"It was so congested, it was disgusting," he said.
He and other witnesses said the bar had become extremely crowded and people were congregating in the parking lot, blasting music from car windows and waiting to get inside.
"I don’t know how they weren’t checked for weapons," said Butler, a combat veteran. "It was doomed from the start."
He said the shooting happened close to the door of the bar but he didn’t hear the shots from upstairs. Butler had gone upstairs after a smoke break just minutes before the accident but never saw any argument.
"It must have been an argument straight to the shooting," he said.
Another man who was at the bar said the parking lot was so jammed with people that he left before the shooting happened, worried the crowd would get out of hand. He was a block away when Ms. Mapp was shot.
"I heard pow, pow, pow, then mad people yelling," the man said.
A couple from Richmond, Va., waited hours to claim their car from the parking lot; it was being dusted for prints. They said the Saturday-night gathering was an after-party for West Brighton Harmony Day, which was rife with family-friendly activities.
"I heard that loud pop and I was hoping it was champagne," the man said. "But I knew better."
No one answered the phone at Shooters this afternoon. Several men were inside with the lights on, while the bar was blocked by police tape.
Butler said the owners at Shooters had been having a difficult time with the bar lately, and he predicted the shooting would spell the end for the establishment.
"He was already looking to sell the place," Butler said. "Business was bad."
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