J'Ouvert celebrations were marked with violence when a member of Governor Andrew Cuomo's deputy counsel was shot early Monday morning in Brooklyn.
Officials say 43-year-old Carey Gabay, who is the governor's first deputy counsel, was standing in a crowd on Bedford Avenue and Sullivan Place in Crown Heights around 3:45 a.m. Monday when shots rang out.
Gabay was struck in the head with at least one bullet.
He was taken to Kings County Hospital, where he is in critical condition.
Investigators believe he was caught in the crossfire between two rival gangs.
"We have recovered a firearm. Based on ballistics evidence recovered, it appears that there were two groups of people shooting back and forth at each other," said NYPD Assistant Chief Patrick Conry.
Although initial reports indicated that Gabay's wife was pregnant, sources tell NY1 that she is not pregnant.
Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, who both took part in the West Indian Day Parade, said the incident is a wake-up call for more gun control.
"Anyone who doesn't believe we need to do something about gun control is delusional," Cuomo said. "We can protect the second amendment and legitimate gun owners, but we also need to protect people."
"This is another reminder of a bigger fight we are engaged in every day, which is to get guns off our streets, to do everything that we can do to make sure that criminals don't have guns in the city," de Blasio said.
The parade itself went on, with politics as natural to the festivities as flags of the islands.
De Blasio had a warm welcome, not effusive.
"There's always room for improvement, you know," said one paradegoer.
"I think he's kind of a mixed man. Kind of a mix, mix, mix," said another.
National politics also played a role in this parade, with supporters of an interesting presidential candidate not too far behind Mayor Bill de Blasio. They backed Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator fighting Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
De Blasio hasn't endorsed any candidate.
The former secretary of state also found some attention.
More locally, talk on Eastern Parkway focused on Cuomo's trip to Puerto Rico. He's spotlighting the reeling economic picture of the island.
De Blasio wasn't invited, which the mayor shrugged off. He has work to do here.
He is charging back at former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who is criticizing how de Blasio handles the homeless.
"This is really a tale of two Rudys, one who says he'd like to chase people away and another who suddenly thinks he was nurturing to them," the mayor said.