Season 5 of The Wire in real life. Gunman Is Sought in Shooting of 5 Homeless Men in NY and DC.

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Gunman Is Sought in Shooting of 5 Homeless Men in New York and Washington

No biting though.

A lone attacker shot the men, two of whom died, as they slept in the street, the authorities said. A sixth shooting, in Manhattan, may be connected.

Images of the person who the police believe shot two homeless people in Lower Manhattan early Saturday.Credit...NYPD
By Andy Newman and Vimal Patel

March 13, 2022Updated 11:03 p.m. ET
A gunman has been targeting homeless men sleeping in the streets of Lower Manhattan and Washington, D.C., and has shot five men, two of them fatally, in recent days, the police in the two cities said on Sunday.

The man may be responsible for yet another fatal shooting of a homeless man in Manhattan on Sunday evening, the police in New York said. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is investigating the shootings jointly with the police departments.

The most recent victim was found dead at 6:30 p.m. Sunday at Greenwich and Murray Streets in TriBeCa in Manhattan, the police said — at the same moment as a demonstration and vigil for the earlier Manhattan victims was being held near the site of one of the earlier shootings.

The police in the two cities said in a joint statement that “similarity in the modus operandi of the perpetrator, common circumstances involved in each shooting, circumstances of the victims and recovered evidence” led them and the A.T.F. to undertake a joint investigation. Both police departments released surveillance photos of the man.

The victim screamed “What are you doing?” and the assailant fled, Chief Sautner said. The victim was in stable condition at a nearby hospital, the police said.

About 15 blocks away around 6 a.m., the same person fatally shot a man who was asleep in a sleeping bag outside 148 Lafayette Street in SoHo, according to the police, who based their conclusion on a review of video footage.

Officers found the man dead at the scene when they responded to a 911 call shortly before 5 p.m., the police said. He had been shot in the head and the neck.

The police have not offered a motive for the shootings. New York’s police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, said in a statement, “Our homeless population is one of our most vulnerable, and an individual preying on them as they sleep is an exceptionally heinous crime.”

The shootings recalled other serial attacks against homeless people in New York City, including a 2019 spree that left four homeless men dead in Chinatown and the February 2021 stabbings of four homeless people in and around the subway, two of whom died.

On Saturday, Mayor Eric Adams called the first two New York shootings a “clear and horrific intentional act” carried out because the men were homeless. “We need to find this person, and we need New Yorkers to help us,” he said.

The police have not released any of the victims’ names.

The police in Washington are offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the gunman, and the police in New York are offering a $10,000 reward.

began an effort to remove homeless people who shelter in the subway system. Advocates warned at the time that given the chronic shortage of housing options palatable to people who choose to live in the subway, most of whom refuse to stay in the city’s barrackslike group shelters, the mayor’s plan could end up pushing people from subways to the streets.

The shootings underscored the vulnerability of people sleeping in public places, who are subject to unprovoked attacks.

In New York in November, a 32-year-old man was fatally stabbed while sleeping on a subway train, and a 66-year-old homeless man was set on fire and died while sleeping in a stairwell on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In December, a 75-year-old man sleeping in a bank vestibule in Manhattan was stomped and injured, and last month, at 3 a.m. in a subway station in Queens, a homeless man was stabbed and injured by several men who had tried to rob him.

 

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They arrested a suspect
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/03/15/arrest-homeless-murders/

Police have arrested a 30-year-old D.C. man, Gerald Brevard III, in connection with shootings that killed two homeless people and wounded three others over the past two weeks in Washington and New York, authorities said.

Brevard was charged with murder and assault in the D.C. attacks after police launched an intense search for a gunman. He was arrested early Tuesday at a gas station near his home in Southeast Washington after police said they got several tips from people who saw photos posted by law enforcement authorities. Police also said Brevard posted a social media photo Monday that appeared to be located in the District.

His father, Gerald Brevard Jr., 54, said that his son has been struggling with mental illness and that his family has been trying to get him help. In a statement, the family expressed condolences to relatives of the victims.

“There was an urgent call to our communities to assist law enforcement, and that collectively we would leave no stone unturned to find this individual,” D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. “Today, I am here to announce, we’ve got our man.”

Brevard has been arrested several times in recent years on charges that include unlawful entry and assault. In 2009, he pleaded guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon and charges related to previous arrests and was given a 12-month suspended sentence and 18 months probation.

Authorities said Brevard was an inpatient at St. Elizabeths, the District’s psychiatric hospital, in 2019 for a competency assessment to determine whether he could participate fully in his defense within the court system. He was found to be competent and released back to the jail, Director of D.C. Department of Health Barbara Bazron said at the news conference.

About 5:40 a.m., D.C. police tweeted that a man was in custody and was being interviewed at the city’s homicide branch. Investigators have not recovered the firearm that they say is linked to the five shootings.

Contee said at the news conference that the shootings appeared to be random and that by Tuesday afternoon, Brevard had not offered a motive.

The arrest came the day after the New York and D.C. police departments warned vulnerable residents to seek shelter indoors, distributing fliers with a picture of the possible attacker as the cities’ mayors and police leaders held a joint news conference to ask for the public’s help.

On Tuesday, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) issued a statement acknowledging that “this experience has been especially scary for our residents experiencing homelessness.”

New York Mayor Eric Adams (D), in the same statement, said the gunman “targeted those experiencing homelessness with no regard for life,” adding that he is “now off the streets.”

New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell said: “People experiencing homelessness have many worries to cope with every day. Tonight, they will have one less.”

The attacks targeting homeless people began in the District around 4 a.m. March 3 in the 1100 block of New York Avenue NE — a lonely stretch of a major thoroughfare near one of the city’s homeless shelters. The victim, whose injuries were not life-threatening, told police he was shot in the back and right shoulder as he slept. Another shooting followed on March 8, when a man was shot once in the hands and face around 1:20 a.m. in the 1700 block of H Street NE outside a grocery store.

The first fatality came the next day. Around 2:50 a.m. March 9, a man camped in the 400 block of New York Avenue NE — blocks from where the first man was shot the previous week — died after he was shot and stabbed and his tent was set on fire, according to police.

The violence then shifted to New York. On March 12, a 38-year-old man was shot in the arm around 4:30 a.m. while sleeping near the Holland Tunnel. About 90 minutes later, police said, a homeless man was found 15 blocks away in a sleeping bag, shot in the head and neck. He died at the scene.

The string of violent incidents in which homeless people were targeted in two of the East Coast’s major cities struck fear among homeless people and their advocates. New York and D.C. have enacted controversial programs to address homelessness in recent months, with Bowser clearing longtime homeless encampments near Union Station and Adams trying to remove homeless people from the New York subway system.

Jesse Rabinowitz, the senior manager for policy and advocacy at the D.C. outreach organization Miriam’s Kitchen, said Monday that it should not take the presence of a killer for people to care about those who are homeless.

“The solution to all of these problems is housing,” he said.

Amanda Chesney, executive director of housing and homeless services for Catholic Charities DC — operator of the men’s shelter on New York Avenue near where two of the violent incidents occurred — said in an interview Tuesday that news of the arrest was welcome.

Attacks on homeless people are a reminder that “sleeping on the street is not safe,” Chesney said.

“It was a scary incident,” she said. “The residents we talked to were very concerned about it. There will be a big sigh of relief that he was apprehended.”