William Alcindor, the Queens driver fatally struck in the head by a stray bullet before careening into a pedestrian and crashing his SUV into a building, was a hardworking immigrant grandfather, his family said Tuesday.
“He didn’t like to fight. He did not like to argue,” said Alcindor’s heartbroken daughter, Gabriella Alcindor, 25, a day after the tragic slaying.
“He was someone who was just non-confrontational. He just wanted to go to work, go to church, kiss his mama, kiss his kids, hug his sisters, love his grandchildren. And he just wanted to go home at the end of the day.”
He didn’t make it. Cops said Alcindor, 66, was driving through the intersection at 117th Road and Farmers Blvd. in St. Albans just as a bullet struck him in the head, setting off the horrific chain of events around 4 p.m. Monday.
Relatives described Alcindor as a hard-working Haitian immigrant. How hard? Some family members said they didn’t even know Alcindor was even back to work after recent health problems sidelined him from his job delivering car parts.
“I actually didn’t know that he went back to work because we all didn’t want him to,” Gabriella said, recalling her father’s stroke more than a decade ago. “He can’t carry these things, you know. He had stopped for a while. We assume that’s what he was doing over there, because he has no reason to be over there. We think he was dropping stuff off. I found out he was working again last night from my cousin.”
She said Alcindor couldn’t stand being confined to the house.
“In 2013 he had a stroke,” Gabriella said. “He had to stop working. He just wanted to find something to do. He would complain about having to sit at home.”
He would have been safer there Monday afternoon.
That’s when he was driving his Nissan SUV past a Popeye’s parking lot, where a teenage gunman squeezed off several shots during a dispute with several rivals.
Alcindor, mortally wounded, struck a pedestrian before plowing into a building.
Medics rushed Alcindor to Jamaica Hospital, where he died a short time later. The pedestrian was taken to the same hospital in stable condition.
The shooter and several people around him ran off. There have been no arrests.
“It’s still surreal,” said the victim’s daughter, Sophia Alcindor, 40. “I still can’t process it. I woke up this morning — I barely slept but when I opened my eyes I was like, ‘Yeah it happened.’”
She said she doesn’t want to see it happen to anyone else.
“These guns, It’s an issue,” she said. “People don’t want to talk about it but it’s an issue. It’s like you want to pretend like it’s not happening. We’re still just trying to process it all because you don’t plan for things like that. He was driving. He was just driving.”
Cops released a surveillance image of the suspected gunman Tuesday and asked the public’s help identifying him and tracking him down.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
