By Matt Hampton
The shooting stemmed from an argument at the fair between two groups of teenagers and young adults, according to police. When one group left the fairgrounds on foot, the other piled into a car and drove after them, down Hempstead Turnpike toward Wellington Road, police said. Christopher Wallace, a passenger in the car, opened fire with a .380 caliber semiautomatic handgun, firing six rounds at members of the rival group and striking four of them, according to detectives.
Two Nassau County police officers, part of a special unit covering the fair, heard the shots, responded to the scene and chased the suspects in the car, who had driven west on Hempstead Turnpike, toward Queens. The officers caught up with the group at the corner of 233rd Street and 105th Avenue in Queens Village, and pulled the car over.
Jeff Desir, 23, of Queens Village; Shereece Codner, 20, of Jamaica; Wallace, 23, of St. Albans and Rood Alvarez, 15, of Queens Village, surrendered to police and were arrested. All were charged with attempted murder — including Avarez, who was charged as an adult, according to police. Wallace was also charged with reckless endangerment, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal use of a firearm.
All four victims — two 17-year-old boys, a 16-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl — were transported to area hospitals, where they were treated for non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
“We were able to quickly find the people who were involved, apprehend them, and take [a gun] off the street, which was very good,” said Detective Lt. Kevin Smith of the Nassau County Police Department, explaining that the fair has been an area of targeted enforcement for uniformed and plainclothes police officers since it opened weeks ago.
Smith credited the officers in the area for responding quickly after they heard gunfire, and apprehending the suspects after a relatively brief chase. “There’s no question that we usually assign a detail anywhere there’s a large group of people, because there’s a potential for crime,” he said. “The necessity of that was proven when shots rang out.”
Assemblyman Tom Alfano (R-Franklin Square) said he was outraged by the shooting, which he believes further proves the need for change in the community. “Last year, I was very vocal in saying that the carnival should not be at Belmont and that safety measures were clearly not good enough,” Alfano said. “Now, there was an attempted murder at the carnival in the form of a shootout. ... This shooting is the latest chapter in the pathetic saga of carnivals, car shows and danger at Belmont.”
The suspects were arraigned Monday morning, according to Nassau County District Attorney spokesman Chris Munzing.
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