NEW YORK -
A person suspected of abruptly pulling a gun and killing a stranger on a New York Metropolis subway practice was arrested Tuesday, with police saying his motive for the unprovoked assault was “an enormous thriller.”
Andrew Abdullah, 25, was anticipated to face a homicide cost within the demise of 48-year-old Daniel Enriquez, who was shot to demise whereas heading to Sunday brunch.
Abdullah “focused this poor particular person for causes we do not know,” Chief of Detectives James Essig mentioned at a information convention.
The arrest got here hours after police posted Abdullah's title and picture on social media and implored the general public to assist discover him. However after the arrest, police disclosed that officers briefly stopped him after the capturing however let him go as a result of his garments did not match the outline they got.
The Authorized Assist Society, which is representing Abdullah, mentioned it was simply starting to overview proof and urged the general public to not make assumptions in regards to the case.
“Mr. Abdullah deserves vigorous illustration from his protection counsel, and that's what The Authorized Assist Society will present,” the group mentioned in an announcement.
About six weeks after one other subway capturing wounded 10 individuals, witnesses Sunday noticed a person pacing the final automotive of a Q line practice heading from Brooklyn to Manhattan, muttering to himself, Essig mentioned. The one phrases witnesses may make out: “No telephones.”
Then the person pulled out a gun and fired at Enriquez at shut vary, hitting him as soon as within the chest, police mentioned. The shooter fled after the practice arrived at Manhattan's Canal Road and ditched his gun by handing it to a stranger on the subway stairs, Essig mentioned. Police finally discovered the recipient and the gun, which had been reported stolen in Virginia in 2019.
A few block and a half away, officers stopped Abdullah and requested him what he was doing, Essig mentioned. However he wasn't carrying the black hoodie talked about within the preliminary suspect description, and he had a backpack that hadn't been talked about. Officers let him go away however took down his title.
Solely later, when viewing surveillance video, did police understand that the gunman had eliminated the sweatshirt after the capturing, Essig mentioned.
The Authorized Assist Society mentioned it had tried since Monday evening to rearrange for Abdullah to give up within the subway capturing, however authorities as a substitute made a “utterly unwarranted and inappropriate” determination to apprehend him exterior the group's workplace. An inquiry was despatched to police.
Abdullah was on parole till final June after serving 2 1/2 years behind bars on a conviction on conspiracy and tried weapon possession prices in a gang case, in keeping with parole data and police. Court docket data present he has open prison circumstances stemming from an April 24 car theft and an alleged assault in 2020. He hasn't entered a plea in both of these circumstances; messages in search of remark have been left along with his attorneys.
“This horrific crime ought to by no means have occurred,” Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell mentioned at a information briefing Tuesday, calling Abdullah “a repeat offender who was given each leeway by the prison justice system.”
Earlier than his arrest, Enriquez's sister Griselda Vile implored town Tuesday to sort out crime extra successfully.
“I am pleading that this not occur to a different New Yorker,” she advised Fox Information. “I do not need my brother simply to be a passing title within the media, a passing title in our normalcy post-pandemic.”
Enriquez labored for the worldwide funding analysis division at Goldman Sachs, the place CEO David Solomon referred to as him a devoted and beloved worker who “epitomized our tradition of collaboration and excellence.”
A toddler of Mexican American mother and father, Enriquez spent his early childhood in Brooklyn earlier than his household moved to California after which to Seattle, his companion, Adam Pollack, advised the New YorkPost.
Enriquez returned to New York Metropolis within the mid-Nineteen Nineties to pursue a grasp's diploma in Latin American research at New York College. His yen for studying did not cease there - in the course of the coronavirus pandemic, he discovered to play the guitar and to talk Portuguese and Italian, his household and companion mentioned.
“He was consistently in self-improvement mode,” brother-in-law Glenn Vile advised Fox Information.
The eldest of 5 youngsters, Enriquez texted his siblings about an hour earlier than he was killed to advise them to verify on their mother and father, who've well being issues, she mentioned.
The seemingly random capturing additional shook a metropolis already on edge about public security. Many forms of crime have rebounded after dipping dramatically earlier within the pandemic when individuals have been staying house.
Within the first 5 months of 2022, the variety of shootings within the metropolis dropped barely over the identical interval a 12 months earlier, and the variety of murders is down 12% to this point over final 12 months. However New York remains to be on tempo to have its second-highest variety of homicides since 2011, after practically a decade of report lows.
When it comes to violent crime, town stays considerably safer now than it was in the course of the Nineteen Seventies, '80s, '90s and early 2000s. However crime is now metropolis voters' prime concern by far, in keeping with a Quinnipiac College ballot launched this month. It surveyed 1,249 registered metropolis voters and has a margin of error of +/- 2.8 proportion factors.
Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who campaigned on guarantees to make town safer, mentioned his administration will consider how it's deploying officers throughout the sprawling subway system.
Related Press journalists Mary Altaffer and Tom Hays contributed.
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