Gates black SUV still at the scene yesterday. (Paul Martinka)
Dale Moore (Paul Martinka)
A Brooklyn man’s harassment campaign against his ex and her new beau came to a bloody end when he was shot by his love rival in a wild road-rage incident yesterday, authorities and witnesses said.
Kai Gates, 34, tailed the couple — both Rikers Island correction officers — to a busy East Flatbush street, where he cut them off and sparked the violence at around 1 p.m.
Gates was allegedly shot by the boyfriend, Dale Moore, 31, and was fighting for his life last night in Kings County Hospital.
Moore was in police custody, although he had not yet been charged, law-enforcement sources said.
The incident unfolded as Moore was driving his Mercedes-Benz on Clarendon Road near Utica Avenue with his girlfriend, Correction Capt. Shalonda Smith, 36, in the passenger seat.
Smith and Moore are assigned to the same unit at Rikers Island.
Gates, in a large black Cadillac SUV, drove up behind Moore’s Mercedes, and then quickly pulled in front, said police sources.
Moore’s Mercedes then “tapped” the rear bumper of Gates’ SUV, said a city Department of Transportation worker driving a marked car behind them.
“It was very slight,” recounted the DOT worker, who did not give his name. “The guy in the black SUV [Gates] gets out . . . He stepped out with his hands up, yelling, ‘What’s up?’
“And the correction officer jumped out and shot him, pop, pop, pop.”
A law-enforcement source said that Moore yelled to Gates, “Don’t come any closer!” But Gates continued to approach, said the source, leading Moore allegedly to shoot him twice.
As Gates staggered from his wounds, his ex-girlfriend Smith ran to his aid.
“She held him up for a second,” the DOT worker said. “Then he took her down with him. She was holding him as he collapsed between the cars.
“She had blood all over her hands, and at first, I thought she was shot, too,” said the DOT worker, who was on duty and driving in Brooklyn with a colleague.
“It was weird,” he said. “The corrections guy [Moore] was fine, like nothing happened. He was real cool.”
But when Moore was told there were witnesses to the shooting, he vomited on the sidewalk, said the DOT worker.
Gates was unarmed, said sources.
Police sources said that Gates had fathered a child with Smith. Gates and Smith once shared the same address in Brooklyn, records show.
In a bankruptcy petition filed two years ago, Gates listed his occupation as bus driver.