A young couple was gunned down and a man shot and injured on Wordsworth Avenue in Duhaney Park late Sunday night in what some residents said is a fresh outbreak of gang warfare in the community.

Police, however, refused to say what sparked the shootings, but reported that 38 year-old Barbara “Mitzie” Douglas, a bartender of 9 Wordsworth Avenue and the father of her seven year-old daughter Crystal, 29 year-old Norman Miles of Baldwin Crescent, were shot at about 10:00 pm by three gunmen.

Police said Douglas, Miles and the other man were standing on Wordsworth Avenue when the shootings occurred. Miles apparently ran and was chased by the gunmen who again shot him at the intersection of Bunyan Crescent and Herrick Avenue. He died on the spot.

Police also said the other man was shot in his right shoulder and fingers. He was still in hospital yesterday.

The injured man’s relatives, however, said that he was not standing with the couple when he was shot. Rather, he was hanging out clothes at the back of his house on Wordsworth Avenue.

The injured man’s brother, 25 year-old Rohan Pratt, said that he was awakened at about 9:50 pm by what he thought were gunshots and heard his brother crying out that he was shot.

“So, I come out and find my brother inside the bathroom lean up with blood,” Pratt said.

Another relative said: “He was hanging out some clothes and went inside for some clothes pins, but by the time he came back out, two men with guns started to shoot him and he had to run inside.”

The gunmen were apparently armed with high-powered rifles because the police said they found two AK 47 spent shells at the scene.

Last month, the murder of 22 year-old Paul “Bad Rasta” Wilson in New Haven ignited a round of gang violence in the community as two men were shot dead three days later, on January 17, in the Chaucer Avenue area of Duhaney Park. Those killings were said to be acts of reprisals for Wilson’s murder. Wilson lived at Brook Avenue and residents there had claimed that he was killed by persons from nearby New Haven.

Yesterday, the air at Douglas’ home was pregnant with grief. Many family members and friends milled around the house, some looking at pictures of the couple, while others cried openly.

Douglas’ sister, 42 year-old Dorraine Dobson, who lives at the same address, said she was inside the house at the time of the double murder.

“My sister and Norman were at the gate about 10 o’clock last night and then we hear some shots and I meet my daughter in the passage and she say Mitzie get shot and I run outside,” she told the Observer.

Miles, she said, was visiting the house.

One of her nieces, Tamara Tomlinson, in between sobs said “She (Mitzie) really nice and this is the last thing I would expect to hear about her.”

While Douglas’ family mourned, a family which shared half of the house with them was busy moving out.