Police charged five people in connection with a drive-by shooting this week that killed one man and wounded four others on a Bronx street, NYPD officials said Wednesday.
Bronx residents Heron Martin, 21, Shamir Murray, 19, Kai Oulai, 19, Jose Gomez, 18, and a 16-year-old boy were all charged with murder, attempted murder, manslaughter and other charges. All five were awaiting arraignment in Bronx courts Wednesday, and their attorney information was not immediately available. Officials did not release the youngest teen‘s name because he is a minor.
Police said two suspects jumped out of a gray Honda in front of a smoke shop on Allerton Avenue near Olinville Avenue around 7:30 p.m. Monday and started firing onto the sidewalk. Five men in their 20s were hit and the suspects fled the scene in the car.
Wakefield resident Jamari Henry, 24, was killed, while four others were taken to local hospitals in stable condition, according to the NYPD. Officers later apprehended five people from a car crash near the intersection of Arnow and Hone avenues, less than a mile from the shooting site. Officials said Gomez was seriously injured in the collision and remained at Jacobi Hospital.
Henry’s mother Shonta Conner told Gothamist she believed her son was “at the wrong place at the wrong time,” and she’d been waiting for him to come home to accompany her to the laundromat. “It’s just devastating,” she said.
Detectives are still investigating whom the suspects were targeting and whether they knew any of the men who were shot, police said.
In an appearance on PIX 11 with Mayor Eric Adams early Wednesday, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Bronx shootings have declined so far this year compared to the same point last year, despite a number of high-profile incidents this summer. She said the department had deployed 1,000 additional officers to the borough to patrol at the times when shootings are most likely to happen.
“My expectation is that those officers are going to quell some of the violence that we’ve seen over the past two weeks,” Tisch said.
NYPD data through August shows shootings in the 49th Precinct, where Monday’s mass shooting occurred, were down nearly 60% compared to the same timeframe last year. Homicides remained level, with three in each period.
This story has been updated with additional information from police.
To learn more about gun violence across New York City, check out Gothamist's map of shooting hot spots over the past several years.
