One of the men killed in Sunday’s mass shooting at a Brooklyn lounge was a “peacemaker” trying to break up a fight in the crowded club not long before the shooting erupted, a sibling and a pal told the Daily News.
Jamel Andre Childs, 35, was trying to cool tempers down inside Taste of the City Lounge on Franklin Ave. in Crown Heights, a role he often takes when he sees a situation about to turn violent, friend Rajawn Philips said.
“He was a cool dude,” said Philips.49, who works at a smoke shop next door to the club. “You know when you go to clubs, you got the crowd of knuckleheads? He’s the one on the side, ‘Like, chill the f— out.’… He’s one of the ones like, ‘Stop that dumb s—.’”
Childs’ brother described him in similar terms.
“He was trying to stop a fight … That sounds exactly like him,” Richard Childs Jr. said. “Jamel wanted to save the world. He wanted to save everyone.”
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
Cops investigate the gang-related mass shooting at Taste of the City Lounge on Franklin Ave. in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Sunday. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Childs and two other men, ages 27 and 19, died in the gang-related 3:30 a.m. shooting, which involved as many as four shooters, police said. Nine more people were wounded.
Philips said the violence started as a two-on-two fight between people in two larger groups at the club.
“Those are people that have been beefing with each other for a while,” he said.
“They said that when the argument first happened, (Childs) was the one that stopped it. They kept partying. Then it jumped off,” Philips said. “I think two people were still not seeing eye to eye and they ended up jumping off.”
Just a few months earlier, in June, Childs and his mom showed up to surprise his young niece at her graduation.
“The family is grieving,” Richand Childs said. “He’s a great brother, great friend.”
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