Police in New York and Washington were on Monday looking for a man suspected of carrying out a series of shooting attacks on homeless people. Two of them were killed in their sleep.
“A ruthless killer is on the loose, but we’re going to arrest him and put him in jail,” declared the Democratic mayors of the two metropolises, calling on the homeless to join shelters while awaiting his arrest. Our people “are shocked by these horrific crimes committed by an individual who targets the most vulnerable of our residents”added the city councilors of New York, Eric Adams, and Washington, Muriel Bowser, in a joint press release.
Five attacks perpetrated with the “same modus operandi”
CCTV footage showing a bearded man, dressed in black and with a shaved head, has been released by law enforcement, who are offering rewards of thousands of dollars for any information that could identify him. He is, according to them, responsible for five attacks perpetrated with the “same modus operandi” about men who slept on the streets.
The first two took place in the middle of the night, on March 3 and 8, in the northeast of the American capital. The victims, who were shot, survived. On Wednesday 9, still in Washington, the emergency services intervened because the tent of a homeless person was on fire. Inside they found the body of a deceased man, who had been shot and stabbed multiple times.
Images broadcast by local channels
According to investigators, the killer then traveled to New York, about 400 km to the north. On the night of Friday to Saturday, he committed two new attacks. A 38-year-old man was found injured but alive in the early morning in the south of the New York island of Manhattan. At the end of the afternoon, in the same neighborhood, the police found another dead man, injured in the head and neck. According to CCTV footage, the suspect shot him around 6:00 a.m. while he was sleeping, shortly after the first incident.
These images, broadcast by local channels, show a man dressed in black, his head covered with a hood and his hands in blue gloves. He circles around a man wrapped in a sleeping bag, gives him little kicks to check that he does not react, takes a look around, before shooting.
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