NBC New York’s Chris Glorioso reports.
The suspect in at least two attacks on Manhattan homeless men over the weekend, one of them fatal, has been linked to three attacks on homeless people in Washington D.C. earlier this month, law enforcement officials said. One of the attacks in the nation's capital city was deadly as well.
The D.C. attacks were on March 3, March 8 and March 9. The third was fatal; the victim was found in a burning tent, having been shot and stabbed to death.
The NYPD, D.C. Metropolitan Police and agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are all assisting in the investigation, the sources said. D.C. police confirmed there were ballistic links between the shootings, and said that all five of the shootings were linked back to the same gun.
In all five incidents between the two cities, all five victims were men experiencing homelessness who were sleeping outside, and in most instances were alone. The D.C. police commissioner said that they are confident that the five shootings are the only victims, but said it is possible there are more out there.
"Homelessness should not be a homicide. This was a cold-blooded attack ," NYC Mayor Eric Adams said at a press conference from D.C. Monday evening. "When you look at the pre-meditative action of the shooter, it sends a clear and loud message that we need the help from the public...Someone knows this person. We are asking for the public to find him."
On Monday, a new image of the alleged gunman was released, but authorities did not provide any other information regarding where the image came from, other than it was recent. Officials said they are not sure where the suspect may live, and D.C. police said they were not aware or searching for a particular vehicle that the suspect may have used.
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Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS. A reward in the shooting has increased to $70,000 between different law enforcement: $25,000 each from NYC and D.C., and $20,000 from ATF.
In a joint statement released late Sunday night, Adams and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said that they are "heartbroken and disturbed by these heinous crimes ... targeting some of our most vulnerable residents," and that the two cities are working together to catch the killer while also imploring those who are on the street to find a shelter to stay in.
"The work to get this individual off our streets before he hurts or murders another individual is urgent. The rise in gun violence has shaken all of us and it is particularly horrible to know that someone is out there deliberately doing harm to an already vulnerable population," the statement read. "We are also calling on unsheltered residents to seek shelter. Again, it is heartbreaking and tragic to know that in addition to all the dangers that unsheltered residents face, we now have a cold-blooded killer on the loose, but we are certain that we will get the suspect off the street and into police custody.”
On top of tracking surveillance video, law enforcement authorities are also asking agencies along the East Coast to see if they have any similar unsolved cases, two senior law enforcement officials said Monday.
The attacks are already having a chilling effect. Newark police said Sunday that teams of cops and outreach workers would fan out that night to warn those experiencing homelessness of the recent attacks and urge them to seek shelter.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell also stressed the all-out effort to bring the person responsible to justice in a tweet Monday morning.
NYC Homeless Men Killings
Police appear confident that one suspect was responsible for both Saturday shootings in New York City, one of which was fatal. Both of those victims were shot in Manhattan between 4:36 a.m. and 6 a.m. Saturday.
The suspect, pictured below, appeared to intentionally approach the first two men separately on the street and shoot them, cops say. One of the men was on Lafayette Street. He was sleeping in a sleeping bag when he was shot, police say.
According to police, security video showed the suspect, wearing all black and a black ski mask, approaching and shooting the man in the sleeping bag about 10 blocks away and 90 minutes after the first attack.
New York City police said that the gunman shot the victims without saying a word or having any interaction with them, and D.C. police said they believe the three shootings were "very much consistent" with what was seen in NYC.
Initially, a homeless man's death Sunday night in New York City was also thought to be possibly linked to the other cases. But police sources said Monday that on further investigation, there was no evidence of criminal activity.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams condemned the Saturday attacks as "horrific," and called the video chilling.
"We need to find this person, and we need New Yorkers to help us," he said.
Adams said a task force composed of police officers and a homeless outreach team would focus on finding unhoused people in the subways and other locations and would urge them to seek refuge at city-owned shelters.
"From the moment we learned the two shootings were linked, we launched a citywide effort to reach out to the homeless population and urge them with three goals: To seek shelter, to ask them if they had encountered this subject from the pictures we showed them, and to ensure there were no undiscovered victims," NYPD Commissioner Sewell said Monday.
In response to a recent surge in crime on the subway system, Adams implemented an aggressive enforcement campaign to clear the subways of homeless and connect them with shelters, food banks and other services, and also enforce rules barring smoking, drinking, sleeping across train seats, behaving aggressively and riding without paying fares.
In the first week, police said they had arrested 143 people in the city’s subways and removed 455 people from trains and stations.
The attacks were reminiscent of the beating deaths of four homeless men as they slept on the streets in New York’s Chinatown in the fall of 2019. Another homeless man, Randy Santos, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in those attacks.
Adams said Monday that teams will still be deployed to remove individuals from sleeping in the subway system, and said that the city is required by law to house any individual that seeks shelter.
