2 BX. SHOOTINGS, 2 DEAD
No arrests in early-morning carnage in Longwood & Mott Haven
Three men were shot, two fatally, in a pair of Bronx shootings less than an hour apart early Monday, police said.
The bloodshed began on Longfellow Ave. near Westchester Ave. in Longwood when a 26-year-old man was shot in the torso at about 3:15 a.m., according to cops.
Medics rushed him to Lincoln Hospital but he could not be saved. His name was not immediately released.
Third-floor resident Minerva Melendez, 52, saw EMS workers outside her apartment door trying to save the victim.
“They were pumping his chest,” she told the Daily News. “I was terrified.”
Two miles away, two men were shot multiple times all over their bodies outside a McDonald’s on E. 149th St. near Morris Ave. in Mott Haven just after 4 a.m., cops said.
Medics rushed the victims to Lincoln Hospital, where one died and the other was in critical condition. Cops are working to determine the men’s identities.
It appears the victims were inside a Nissan Rogue when they were shot, with bullet holes in the front windshield and the driver’s side and passenger’s side front windows shattered.
The driver’s seatbelt was cut and a large pool of blood was drying outside the driver’s side door hours later.
A white handbag and a hoodie could be seen on the front passenger seat.
Reya Flowers, 25, said she was awakened by eight shots.
“I went back to sleep,” said Flowers. “When you grow up like I did, that’s just another Sunday night.”
Another neighborhood resident, Angel Robles, 54, said the sound of gunfire is all too familiar.
“I’m from Queens, Richmond Hill,” he said. “It’s quiet over there. Here, it’s horrible.”
There were no arrests in either shooting, and police said there is no immediate indication they were connected.
Before Monday’s shooting, the NYPD’s 41st Precinct saw one homicide in 2024 compared with two by the same time last year, according to police data.
In the 40th Precinct, where the double shooting rang out, the number of shooting victims and incidents have doubled in 2024 compared with the same time frame last year, according to the NYPD.
A group of progressive politicians and criminal justice advocates blasted Mayor Adams and Police Commissioner Ed Caban on Monday over what they see as the NYPD’s “shameful” decision to not discipline two officers involved in the fatal shooting of Kawaski Trawick.
The NYPD announced late Friday afternoon that the officers, Brian Thompson and Herbert Davis, would not be fired or otherwise reprimanded because Caban had concluded they “acted within the law” during an April 2019 incident that culminated in Thompson, who’s white, fatally shooting Trawick, who was Black, in his Bronx home.
Gathered outside City Hall on Monday afternoon, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, members of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus and police reform advocates voiced outrage over Caban’s decision and argued Adams is equally responsible as the city’s top elected official. Williams said the city should enact legislation to strip the NYPD of the power to decide whether an officer should be fired.
Bronx Councilwoman Pierina Sanchez, a Democrat who represents the neighborhood where Trawick (photo) died, said it was particularly egregious that the Police Department waited until late on a Friday afternoon to announce the cops would not face repercussions.
“Come out here and face us, face these families,” Sanchez said. “This is infuriating, this is demoralizing.”
Ellen and Rickie Trawick, the victim’s parents, were not at the rally, but a representative read a statement from them that called out the mayor for never meeting or speaking with them.
“Mayor Adams should be ashamed of himself as a father and as a Black man,” the statement read. “And the fact that Adams didn’t even let my family know of this decision before making it public is the height of disrespect. … The disregard they have for our son’s memory, to make this decision as part of a late Friday news dump on the fiveyear anniversary of his death is disgusting and shameful.”
City Hall issued a statement from the mayor that called Trawick’s death “a tragedy.”
“It is vital that we all learn from this loss of life and use it to make positive strides towards better policing and care for those living with severe mental illness,” the statement read.
Thompson and Davis responded to Trawick’s home in a supportive housing complex on April 14, 2019, after he had called 911 to report he’d been locked out of his apartment.
Once police arrived, Trawick had made it into his apartment. Still, Thompson and Davis pushed the door open to find Trawick shirtless with a knife in his hand.
Body camera footage showed Trawick asking the officers why they were in his home and telling them he was holding a knife because he was cooking dinner. As Trawick moved toward the officers, Thompson fired his Taser at Trawick and then fatally shot him four times with his handgun, even as Davis urged him to not use the weapon.