Gunmen on the backs of scooters opened fire on a Bronx street corner Tuesday, fatally shooting one man and wounding three others, police said.
Two scooters carrying two men each zipped east on E. Mount Eden Ave. toward Townsend Ave. in Mount Eden around 6:15 p.m., NYPD Assistant Chief Benjamin Gurley said at a news conference after the gunfire.
When they got to the intersection, the scooter passengers each pulled out a gun and fired off about 10 shots, striking three men in the leg and one 29-year-old man in the chest and leg, according to Gurley.
The masked suspects wearing hooded sweatshirts to further conceal their identities took off northbound on Townsend Ave. toward the Cross Bronx Expressway.
A witness who manages a store in the neighborhood heard the shots and rushed outside.
“One was unconscious [and] the other guy was shot in the leg,” said Wilknes Hernandez, 20. “I can’t believe what my eyes were seeing.
“It was taking the ambulances forever,” he added. “They rushed the two of them in a car.”
The victims, whose ages range from 23 to 39, were all taken to an area hospital, where the 29-year-old victim died, police said.
“They were customers and always treated me with respect,” Hernandez said of the victims. “The one who passed away was always smiling. He always made me feel better.”
Cops took one person into custody for questioning, but it wasn’t immediately clear if they were directly tied to the shooting, Gurley said.
Detectives were working to determine the motive behind the violence Tuesday night.
The NYPD’s community response team had been working in the area for the last couple of weeks “going aggressively after people on scooters,” NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry said at the news conference.
“As a result of this incident we’re going to be bringing back our community response teams and they’ll be focusing primarily on individuals riding around on illegal scooters dirty bikes and ATVs,” he added.
Since the start of the year, the NYPD has removed 9,500 scooters, dirt bikes and ATVs from city streets, according to Daughtry.
Of those vehicles, 2,500 were seized in the Bronx, he said. In all five boroughs, police have issued 989 summonses and arrested 1,300 people as a result of the confiscations, the deputy commissioner added.
“There is a direct relation to people riding around on illegal scooters and committing crimes,” Gurley said.
The shooting came hours after police announced they pulled more than 1,600 illegal mopeds, motorcycles, ATVs and dirt bikes from city streets during a massive 10-day operation across the five boroughs.
