NEW YORK — One man died and three others were wounded in Queens and Brooklyn on Saturday when a scooter-riding shooter unleashed a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol on people he seemed to pick out randomly on the street, police said.
The 25-year-old suspect was in custody early Saturday afternoon, and police said there was no ongoing threat to the public.
Why the man fired in the five separate incidents was a mystery to police brass who spoke at a news conference several hours after his arrest. “It seems that his acts were random,” said Assistant Chief Joseph Kenny of the NYPD Detective Bureau.
Kenny said the ages and backgrounds of the victims were “all different.” He said the evidence as of Saturday afternoon showed the suspect was “not targeting anybody. He’s not following anybody. As he’s driving on his scooter, he’s randomly shooting people.”
The suspect — whose name was not released — has one previous arrest, police said.
The shooter appeared to target pedestrians and people in their cars in the shooting spree, said cops.
An 87-year-old man died after the scooter-riding suspect shot him one time in the back on Jamaica Ave. and 109th St. in Richmond Hill at 11:28 a.m. He was pronounced dead at Jamaica Hospital, said police.
Jasvir Singh, 50, the owner of Zoom Zoom Wireless on the Jamaica Ave. block, said he was inside the store when he saw the shooter ride by the store window.
“He did a U-turn and he loaded his gun and he just started shooting,” Singh said.
Police said the shooter also aimed at a group of people at the corner of 108th St. and Jamaica Ave., but no one else was struck.
“I mean everybody is scared. Everybody is in shock,” Singh said.
Minutes later, at about 11:35 a.m., the shooter fired at a 44-year-old man on Hillside Ave. and 126th St. A bullet struck the man in the cheek, and the man was in critical condition at Jamaica Hospital on Saturday afternoon, said police.
Two minutes after that, at 11:37 a.m., another man was shot in the shoulder blocks away on Jamaica Ave. and 134th St., said police. That victim, a 63-year-old man, was hit in the shoulder and was in stable condition at Jamaica Hospital later Saturday, said cops.
A worker at a nail salon near the scene of that shooting said she saw a pedestrian wounded in the gun violence.
“The guy was waiting for the light to cross the street and someone came and shot him three times,” said the worker, Gabriela Tipan.
Police said they found four 9 mm shell casings at that scene.
“(The victim) crossed the street and he laid down on the floor. He didn’t die. The ambulance came. He was shot on the shoulder.”
One person was wounded in a shooting in Brooklyn that apparently was the shooter’s first of the day, said police.
In that incident, around 11:10 a.m. at Arlington Ave. and Ashford St. in East New York, a 21-year-old man was hit in the shoulder, said police. His wound was not considered life-threatening.
Soon after the shootings, police found video evidence that gave them an image of the suspect, said New York Police Department Acting Commissioner Edward Caban. The image was distributed to police officers’ cellphones, Caban said.
Shortly after 1 p.m., officers from the 103rd and 113th precincts spotted the shooter, Caban said. They arrested him near the intersection of 94th Ave. and Sutphin Blvd. in Jamaica, near the Jamaica train station.
The suspect’s 9 mm pistol had an extended magazine, said police.
“We have not found a serial number on the gun,” Kenny said. “We’re trying to determine whether it’s defaced, or possibly a ghost gun. That’ll come out later on in our investigation.”
