2 wounded in Huntington Station gunfire near Abrams

Gunfire outside a Huntington Station home early Wednesday morning sent a gathering of people scattering and two wounded people scrambling to escape their attacker, who remained at large Wednesday, Suffolk police said.

Detectives Wednesday interviewed witnesses to the early morning shooting on Church Street, a block and a half from the recently closed Jack Abrams School. Patrol cars circled the neighborhood, which has seen a string of recent violence, including the shooting of a 16-year-old last month that triggered a contentious decision by the Huntington school district to close Abrams, an intermediate school.

Police said events unfolded quickly just before 2 a.m. as Ariel Perez, 21, and several others gathered on the concrete slab in the yard of a building shared by several families, where neighbors said "No Trespassing" signs did little to keep people from the hangout.

A man approached and opened fire with a handgun, striking Perez in the arm, hand and both legs, said Det. Lt. Thomas O'Heir. Bonnie McCoy, 23, of Riverhead, was standing nearby and was hit in the leg. The shooter fled on foot. Detectives said McCoy's shooting was inadvertent, and that Perez was the intended target. Both were seriously hurt but in stable condition at Huntington Hospital.

Trails of blood were still visible Wednesday leading from the home's front steps, around the side of a home, and past Sabrina Dixon's grandchildren's bedroom window. Dixon, 43, said the children, ages 3 and 7, were jolted from sleep by gunshots.

"We've got so many young kids here, if this had happened during the day, there would have been little baby bodies everywhere," said Dixon who shares the building with her daughter and four other families.

Perez is a member of the Crips street gang, lives at various addresses in Huntington Station and Wyandanch, and has faced a long string of misdemeanor arrests, police said. He was "uncooperative" with investigators after the shooting, O'Heir said. Police said they had no motive for the attack and described the assailant only as a young male.

Last October, Perez choked and beat a man in Huntington Station, about a mile and a half from where he was shot Wednesday, stealing $190 in cash, according to a Suffolk County district attorney spokesman. Perez was arrested days later and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in February of attempted felony robbery. He was released from the Riverhead jail in March with time served.

At McCoy's home, her grandmother, Doris Carter, said McCoy was "doing fine," but did not know when she might be released.

With Deborah Morris and Rachel Bryson-Brockmann