A scooter-riding gunman who's accused of going on a shooting spree across two boroughs in New York City over the weekend has been charged.
Authorities said 25-year-old Thomas Abreau has been charged with murder and attempted murder for six different shootings Saturday, including one that killed an 86-year-old man from Queens. Police said another man was shot in the face and hospitalized in critical condition, while two others were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. No injuries were reported from two of the shootings.
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The first incident happened around 11 a.m. Saturday in Brooklyn, where NYPD Assistant Police Chief Joseph Kenny said a 21-year-old Hispanic male was shot once in the left shoulder. He was transported to a local hospital and is expected to recover.
Approximately 17 minutes later, in Queens, police received several 911 calls about a male hit by gunfire. On scene, officers found an 86-year-old man of Asian-Pacific descent with a gunshot wound to the back. He was transported to a local hospital, where he died of his injuries.
While responding to the scene of the homicide, officers were alerted of another nearby shooting where the gunman on a scooter was firing randomly at a group of people, but nobody was struck. The shooter fled that scene, and about eight minutes later, another victim was hit by gunfire. A 44-year-old Hispanic male was shot once in the face, with the bullet striking him in the cheek. He is now hospitalized in critical condition.
Less than a minute later, a 63-year-old male was also shot. Officers discovered him with a gunshot wound to his right shoulder. He is hospitalized in stable condition. At each of the shooting incidents, police discovered 9 mm shell casings.
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Kenny said the shooter was apprehended less than two hours after the first shooting but police are still trying to identify a motive behind the attacks.
"At this time, we don't know the motive. It seems that his acts were random," Kenny said at a news conference. "If you look at the demographics and pedigree of the victims, they're all different."
Violent crime in the nation's most populous city has been on an upward trend in recent years, but it's still well below its peak in the early-1990s. NYC authorities said shooting incidents dropped 16.8% in June, as compared to a year earlier. Additionally, homicides fell by 3.1% in the same month.
Mayor Eric Adams, a former NYPD captain, has repeatedly pushed for stricter gun laws and moreprograms that aim to keep guns of the streets.
