A man was killed and four others injured Monday evening in what police said was a drive-by shooting on a Bronx street — the latest incident in a spate of summer gun violence in the borough.
NYPD officials said the shooting happened around 7:30 p.m. in front of a smoke shop on Allerton and Olinville avenues in Allerton. A gray Honda pulled up to the location, and two people got out and opened fire before getting back into the car and fleeing the scene, according to officials.
Police said five people were struck, including 24-year-old Wakefield resident Jamari Henry, who was taken to Jacobi Hospital and pronounced dead. The others were a 21-year-old man and 25-year-old man who were shot in their arms, and two 27-year-old men who were shot in their legs.
“I think he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Henry’s mother Shonta Conner, who said she was waiting for him to come back to their Wakefield home so they could go together to the laundromat.
Conner said her son was a “momma’s boy” who loved his two younger brothers and the family’s pets, including several dogs, cats, geckos and snakes. She said he’d once wanted to become a veterinarian.
Henry frequently spent time in Allerton because the family lived there when he was younger, his mother added. But she said the area had some painful memories for them: Henry’s uncle James Conner was fatally shot there in 2020, just around the corner from where Henry was shot.
“It’s just devastating,” Conner said, noting she had no idea who would have wanted to harm her son.
Officials said the suspects crashed their car near the intersection of Arnow and Hone avenues, less than a mile from the shooting site, and officers took five people into custody. One of the suspects, a 24-year-old man, was injured and hospitalized in critical condition from the collision, according to the NYPD.
Charges for all five suspects were pending Tuesday, and police said they were still investigating whom the shooters were targeting and why. At the crime scene, two candles with messages scrawled on them marked the place where neighbors said Henry collapsed.
City Councilmember Oswald Feliz, who represents part of Allerton, said officials must do more to ensure residents have enough economic and social opportunities and police patrol the neighborhood effectively.
“That’s a very low-income area, very little opportunity, and when you have little opportunity things like that result,” he said at an unrelated press conference Tuesday.
Candles stand at the scene of the shooting on Allerton Avenue near Olinville Avenue on Sept. 2, 2025.
Officials said they were also investigating another fatal Bronx shooting after 21-year-old Mount Hope resident Jontay Davis showed up outside St. Barnabas Hospital in Belmont with a gunshot wound to his head around 2 a.m. Tuesday. He was admitted to the hospital and pronounced dead. There were no immediate arrests in the case.
The shootings happened about a week after one person was killed and four others were injured by gunfire at a basketball tournament at Haffen Park in Baychester. Police arrested and charged four people, including two teens, in connection with that incident.
In late July, two men were killed in an early-morning shooting next to Ferry Point Park in Throgs Neck, a popular spot for barbecues and soccer games. The same weekend, four people were injured in shootings and a stabbing near Grand Concourse as the Bronx Dominican Parade wound down.
Shootings in the Bronx were down 19% through Aug. 24 compared to the same period last year, and they were down 20% citywide, according to NYPD data. Over the same timeframe, they dropped 58% in the 49th Precinct, which includes Allerton, Morris Park and Van Nest, among other neighborhoods.
In response to the recent shootings, Mayor Eric Adams said last week he would deploy 1,000 extra police officers to the Bronx’s violence hotspots. Adams also said he wanted the city’s crisis management teams and other mediation groups to facilitate a meeting with local gang leaders.
This story has been updated with additional information.
To learn more about gun violence across New York City, check out Gothamist's map of shooting hotspots over the past several years.
