10 COURIER LIFE, MAY 7-13, 2021
Teen fatally shot
outside Midwood
charter school
Detectives investigate outside of Urban Dove Charter School in Midwood, where a 17-yearold
student was fatally shot on April 29. Photo by Lloyd Michell
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
A gunman fatally shot a Canarsie
teen while he was leaving his Midwood
high school on Thursday afternoon.
Offi cers from the 70th Precinct responded
to the scene at around 2:43 pm
and found 17-year-old Devonte Lewis
of Shore Parkway with a gunshot
wound near the entrance to Urban
Dove Charter School on E. 21st Street
near Avenue K.
EMS units rushed Lewis to Kings
County Hospital, where doctors pronounced
him dead a short time later.
Witnesses claim to have seen two
Black men fl eeing the location shortly
after the shots rang out, according to
offi cials, who say the suspects had attempted
to fl ee inside a BMW sedan,
but abandoned their ride at the scene.
Detectives have yet to obtain a possible
motive for the shooting. No arrests
have been made thus far, in the
ongoing investigation.
The school — which services almost
entirely students of color that
have failed the ninth grade and are at
risk of dropping out — is still new to
the area. It has been a source of controversy
since 2019, when Urban Dove
fi rst announced it would lease space
within the East Midwood Jewish Center,
with predominantly Orthodox
Jewish neighbors bemoaning the arrival
of the school’s predominantly
Black, at-risk teens, despite members
and the center’s board voting overwhelmingly
in favor of the school.
Members have pushed the center to
pull out of the lease and fi nd a Jewish
school to occupy the space instead.
Are Councilmember Kalman Yeger,
a critic of the school’s lease, took to social
media to claim that Thursday’s
shooting was the fi rst since the school
building was erected seven decades
ago.
“In 70 years since East Midwood
Jewish Center built its school building,
no student was ever shot there,”
he tweeted.
In a statement, the Urban Dove’s
director expressed dismay at the tragedy,
and claimed that they’d “never
experienced an event such as this.”
“The Urban Dove community is
devastated and heartbroken at the
loss of one of our students. This tragic
act of violence, perpetrated by individuals
from outside our school community,
has our entire Urban Dove
family in mourning,” said Jai Nanda.
“Urban Dove has never experienced
an event such as this and we send our
thoughts and prayers to our student’s
family. Urban Dove is in close communication
with NYPD and will cooperate
fully to help ensure that these violent
criminals are quickly brought to
justice.”
Additional reporting by Ben Verde
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