A gunman riding an electric scooter fatally shot an 87-year-old man and wounded three others in a series of random attacks that spanned two New York City boroughs, police said Saturday.
A 25-year-old man, whose identity was not released by authorities, was taken into custody without resistance, Deputy Police Chief Joseph Kenny said at a news conference. He recovered a 9mm pistol with an extended magazine and an electric scooter.
The Police Department obtained an image of the shooter from a video and sent it to the cell phones of its officers, some of whom detected the suspect approximately two hours after the first shooting.
“We don’t know the reason. It seems that his actions were random, ”Kenny stressed.
Police said there were a total of five shootings by someone riding an electric scooter, one in Brooklyn and four in Queens. One of those attacks did not leave any injuries.
The attacks began around 11:10 a.m. when someone on an electric scooter struck a 21-year-old man in Brooklyn in the shoulder. The injured man was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive, according to police.
Seventeen minutes later, an 87-year-old man was shot multiple times in the Richmond Hill area of the borough of Queens. He later died at a hospital.
Shortly after, in Queens, witnesses reported that a man on an electric scooter fired randomly at a group of people, though no one was injured.
Eight minutes later, a 44-year-old man was shot in the face. He was in critical condition at the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.
About a minute later, a 63-year-old man was shot in the torso. He was in stable condition at a hospital.
Murders in America’s most populous city have risen in recent years to about the level where they were a decade ago, well below the peak of the early 1990s. The number of people wounded by gunfire has increased in the city of New York during the pandemic and it remains stubbornly high. The city has also faced a series of high-profile crimes.
Mayor Eric Adams, a former New York City police captain, has stressed the importance of getting guns off the streets.
At a press conference, NYPD Acting Commissioner Edwar Caban acknowledged the quick action of the agents to arrest the subject of the scooter. The NYPD put a message on social networks with images of the scooter and the weapon that the suspect would have carried with him.
Below are photos of the scooter and firearm recovered at the scene. pic.twitter.com/xtFxtT1bCZ
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) July 8, 2023
Caban explained that the officers managed to obtain surveillance images of the armed man who later sent them to the phones of all the uniformed men.
About two hours after the shooting began, at around one in the afternoon, the police managed to take the suspect into custody without incident.
The NYPD was unable to provide additional details, including information about the man being held or his motives, as investigators are still trying to determine what sparked the spate of shootings.
2023-07-09 00:37:00
#dead #injured #shootings #Queens #Brooklyn
