Carroll Gardens

Murder in Carroll Park stuns Brooklyn neighbors

"It was nine shots."

January 13, 2025 Mary Frost
On Saturday, most parents at Brooklyn’s Carroll Park didn’t know a murder had taken place there hours earlier. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle
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CARROLL GARDENS — A man was shot and killed in a hail of gunfire early Saturday morning in Carroll Park, shocking neighbors in the leafy brownstone-Brooklyn neighborhood of Carroll Gardens.

Police, who said they responded to a 911 call triggered by a ShotSpotter activation around 2:48 a.m., identified the victim as Jordan Dillard, 23, a resident of 37 Centre Mall at the Red Hook East NYCHA project, roughly a mile away from the park.

When officers arrived, they found Dillard on the ground, his torso riddled with bullets. He was transported by EMS to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital where he was pronounced deceased. 

Carroll Park’s Robert Scott Acito Parkhouse. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle
Carroll Park’s Robert Scott Acito Parkhouse. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

Carroll Gardens resident John Thompson, who lives across from the park on President Street near Smith Street, told the Brooklyn Eagle that he was “awake watching a silly documentary” at that time when he heard shots ring out. 

“It was nine shots,” Thompson said. “Clearly from a semi-automatic. A burst of five, then one, then three.”

Thompson said that he went downstairs 20 minutes later “to tell the cops what I heard, and they were just loading the guy into an ambulance, trying to get his heart going.”

Later that morning, Carroll Park — one of the oldest in Brooklyn, according to the Parks Department — was filled with scampering children and parents pushing strollers.

John Thompson, who lives across from the park on President Street, shown here, said he heard nine gunshots. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle
John Thompson, who lives across from the park on President Street, shown here, said he heard nine gunshots. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

“I’m shocked!” a mom who gave her name as Helen told the Eagle. “We come here every weekend. It’s a local park — you don’t expect that to happen.”

Two fathers were chatting as their kids ran around. “Really! I’m very surprised,” one of them said. They had never heard of violence in Carroll Park before, they said.

There were no arrests as of Sunday afternoon and the investigation remains ongoing, police said.

According to NYPD statistics, this is the first murder in the 76th Precinct in 2025, and there were no murders at all in the precinct in 2024. Crime in the 76th in general was down last year by about a third.

The victim was found on the ground near the Carroll Park War Memorial, which honors locals who died in World War I. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle
The victim was found on the ground near the Carroll Park War Memorial, which honors locals who died in World War I. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

Decades ago, the area, like much of New York City, experienced a much higher rate of crime. In 1990, there were 13 murders in the precinct, and higher numbers of every index crime than today.

“People you live in a big city, crime [will] never disappear! Although if you see the statistics, crime has gone down since the pandemic, not to mention since the 70s,” a long-time resident posted on the social media site NextDoor.





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