A Queens dad walking his dog in Forest Park stumbled upon a frightening find: an AR-15-style rifle similar to the one used in the Prague massacre.
The heavy-duty firearm was peeking out of an open gun case, nestled in the leaves just a few hundred feet from a playground in Forest Park.
Joel Kuszai, of Woodhaven, and his pitbull Missy were in the woods last Saturday when he noticed the gun, rounds of ammunition, a second empty gun case and a safe full of personal documents scattered on a small hill south of Forest Parkway.
“My first thought was, ‘That’s a crazy looking toy gun,’” Kuszai, 56, told The Post. “Then I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s an assault weapon.’ I was completely blown away to see something like that.”
When it snows, his kids join hundreds of others to sled down the exact hill where the firearm was discarded.
The day before he found the gun, his 10-year-old daughter and friends from the neighborhood took advantage of unseasonably warm weather and picnicked at the bottom of the hill, Kuszai said.
The father of two called 911.
Police collected the items, and a preliminary investigation found that the rifle, which appeared to have a magnifying scope attached to it, was stolen.
The Czech gunman who killed 14 people at a university in the Czech Republic on Thursday is believed to have used an AR-15 also fitted with a scope.
The investigation is ongoing as detectives explore if the items are linked to crimes, police said.
The items looked as if they had rolled down the hill from the parkway, which turns into Forest Park drive and loops up toward the Jackie Robinson Parkway.
“It’s a really quiet neighborhood and it’s really sad to hear that the police found that in the park where children are so close by, there’s schools around,” said Jorge Martinez, 29, a Woodhaven resident who drives his electric bike through the park to deliver for Uber Eats.
“It’s not right. Any kid could have stumbled across it.”
Kuszai and his neighbors have had concerns over their portion of the 500-acre park, which borders the Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn.
When Kuszai first moved to the area from Jackson Heights in 2011, he was interviewed by local news about remains found in the park of a woman who had been killed and dismembered by her husband years prior.
“It’s a little bit freakier, this wild zone on the western end of the park,” Kuszai said.
More recently, parts of the park have become dumping grounds for garbage and burned out cars are left abandoned. Homeless encampments are repeatedly removed but quickly return.
“We love the park, that’s why we moved here, and there’s a nice group of families here who would love to be a part of any solutions,” Kuszai said.
