Violence at the festivities included one dead and four injured, including this Cuomo aide:
FLATBUSH, N.Y. (WABC) -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo's first deputy counsel was shot Monday morning in the pre-festival violence that happened in Brooklyn Monday morning.
Carey Gabay, 43, was shot in the head on Bedford Avenue near the intersection of Montgomery Street in Flatbush at about 3:45 a.m.
Officials said Gabay was with his brother and they walked past an argument where shots were fired, and he was struck by at least one bullet.
Gabay was rushed the hospital where he's in critical condition.
Gov. Cuomo spoke with Eyewitness News following the shooting, and he said the violence is pointless.
"This was a beautiful man, a sweet man, a man who was giving back to his community, a gentleman, who was involved in nothing, just walking down the street with his brother, wife pregnant with his first child," Cuomo said. "He was the lawyer who rewrote the rent laws that protected so many tenants. I'm going to see him now. It's a reminder that the violence has to stop."
Cuomo then discussed crime overall.
"That, that my friends as we celebrate today, we have to commit ourselves to justice in partnership with the police and in partnership with one another, that the crime, the violence on those streets stop, because enough young people have died. Enough innocent people have died. And it has to stop and it has to stop now," Cuomo said.
Cuomo staffer Carey Gabay in critical condition after West Indian Day Parade violence http://t.co/LN6waTx3lQ pic.twitter.com/SYx01hp5oG
— PIX11 News (@PIX11News) September 7, 2015
