The first bullets hit Chrispine Phillips in the chest, arm and head. As he fell fatally injured inside a crowded hookah bar in Brooklyn on Friday morning, the assailant ran for the door, shooting as he went.

“He was shooting to make a path, to make people get out of the way,” said a police official who did not want to be identified because he was speaking about a continuing investigation.

Bullets hit two other young men and a woman who scrambled with others to escape the violence, which erupted around 3 a.m., the police said. Other patrons were injured as they pushed one another and fell in an effort to get out.

Hours later, detectives from the 71st Precinct were trying to piece together the chaos that unfolded at the Buda Hookah Lounge, on Flatbush Avenue, reviewing surveillance footage from cameras inside the lounge, the police said.