A gunman shot up the entrance of an East Village apartment building early Sunday, leaving three people wounded, the shooter on the loose — and an elderly tenant calling his home “the closest to hell.’’
The potentially deadly shots rang out at the Lillian Wald Houses on Sixth Street in Alphabet City in Manhattan around 3:30 a.m. and sent victims to Bellevue Hospital and the shooter fleeing, police and bystanders said.
“I rolled out of my bed and hit the floor,” a second-floor resident told The Post. “Sounded like six or seven gunshots. I heard a guy yelling, ‘Mother f–ker! Mother f—ker!’
“In the last six months, this happened four times,” the resident said. “I blame the Housing Authority. They keep putting people in here with all these drug problems and stuff. They shouldn’t be putting these people here.”
An 88-year-old resident who only gave his name as Manny said, “They got two gangs here.
“Two teenage gangs, and they fight. This is the closest to hell.”
Locals said an argument had broken out among a large group of people gathered at the entrance to the complex before the gunman opened fire.
Police said one victim, who has at least four prior arrests, was shot in the face and back.
All three victims are expected to survive, police said. The shooter remains on the lam.
A 40-year-old man was hit in the groin, and the third was shot in the buttocks.
Footage of the aftermath showed several women pushing past police to look inside an ambulance where one of the victims was being treated.
One woman was seen collapsing and had to be helped to her feet by bystanders and police.
Cops have not identified the gunman, who wore a red hoodie during the attack, and did not reveal a possible motive for the shooting.
“They all live here and these apartments, where one person has five rooms and he rents out to other people a room,” Manny said. “They’re all here, and they sell drugs. Right now, there are six apartments selling drugs in my building.
“I’ve lived here 57 years, and I’ll tell you this this is the worst place to live.”
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