Gunman on scooter shoots randomly in NYC, police say, killing an 87-year-old and wounding 3 others
A gunman riding a scooter killed an 87-year-old man and injured three others in a series of random shootings that spanned two boroughs of New York City, police said Saturday.
A 25-year-old man was taken into custody without incident and his identity has not been released by police, Deputy Police Chief Joseph Kenny said at a news conference. A 9mm handgun with an extended magazine and a roller were recovered.
New York police pulled an image of the shooter from video and sent it to the phones of officers, some of whom spotted the suspect about two hours after the initial shooting.
“We don’t know the motive. It appears his actions were indiscriminate,” Kenny said.
In total, there were five shootings during the scooter rampage, one in Brooklyn and four in Queens, according to the NYPD. No one was injured in any of the shootings.
The shooting began around 11:10 a.m. when someone on a scooter in Brooklyn shot a 21-year-old man in the shoulder. He was taken to a hospital and is expected to survive, police said.
Seventeen minutes later, an 87-year-old man was shot multiple times in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Queens. He later died in a hospital.
Shortly thereafter, witnesses in Queens reported a man on a scooter shooting indiscriminately into a group of people, although no one was injured.
Eight minutes later, a 44-year-old man was shot in the face. He was in critical condition at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.
About a minute later, a 63-year-old man was shot in the upper body. He was in a hospital in stable condition.
The number of homicides in the country’s most populous city has risen in recent years to about where it was a decade ago – well below the peak of the early 1990s. The number of gunshot wounds in New York City rose sharply during the pandemic and remains stubbornly high, and the city has faced a string of high-profile crimes.
Mayor Eric Adams, a former New York City police captain, has stressed the importance of banning guns from the streets.
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This story has been updated to correct some details about the victims of the shooting due to incorrect information from the NYPD. The man who died was 87 years old, not 86. The penultimate victim was 44 years old, not 63; he was injured in the face, not in the shoulder; and he was in critical condition, not stable. The last victim was 63 years old, not 61; and his condition was stable, not critical.
