Shooter on scooter in NYC arrested, NYPD says

NEW YORK (PIX11/AP) — A scooter-riding gunman who went on a random shooting spree across two New York City boroughs was arrested by the New York Police Department, officials said Saturday.

A 25 year-old man was taken into custody without incident and his identity was not revealed by police, Assistant Police Chief Joseph Kenny said at a news conference. A 9 mm handgun with an extended magazine and a scooter were recovered.

Earlier in the day, NYPD responded to reporters of a shooter coming from Queens and Brooklyn.

The assailant began shooting around 11:10 a.m., authorities said. His first victim was a 21 year-old Brooklyn man. Police say he walked up to the man and shot him in the left shoulder. The victim was taken to the hospital and is in stable condition, the NYPD said.

Seventeen minutes later in Queens, that same man on the scooter shot a 87 year-old man in the back, according to NYPD. The victim was pronounced dead at a local hospital sometime later.

Shortly afterward in Queens, witnesses reported a man on a scooter firing randomly into a group of people, although nobody was hurt.

Then, at around 11:35 a.m., in the Hillside section of Queens, a 44 year-old man was shot in the face on the corner of Hillside Avenue and 126 Street. That victim was taken to the hospital where he remains in critical condition, the NYPD said.

Less than two minutes later, another victim, a 63 year-old man, was shot in the torso. He was in stable condition at a hospital, NYPD said. 

The man who was arrested has one prior arrest in the New York City area, according to records.

“We don’t know the motive. It seems his acts were random,” Kenny said during Saturday’s conference.

In all, NYPD said there were five shootings carried out by the man.

Killings in the nation’s most populous city have risen in recent years to about where they were a decade ago — well below an early-1990s peak. The number of people wounded by gunfire surged in New York City during the pandemic and remains stubbornly high, and the city has also confronted 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.