New York City officials have asked the public to help find a person who shot two sleeping homeless men, one fatally, in Lower Manhattan early Saturday morning.
At about 4:30 a.m., the police responded to a call at the corner of King and Varick streets and found a 38-year-old Hispanic man with a gunshot wound to his right forearm. The man had been sleeping when he was shot, Deputy Chief Hank Sautner of the New York Police Department said at a news conference late Saturday.
The victim screamed, “What are you doing?” and the assailant fled east on King Street, Mr. Sautner said. The victim was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was in stable condition, the police said.
Later, at about 6 a.m., the same person fatally shot a man who was asleep in a sleeping bag outside 148 Lafayette Street, according to the police, who based their conclusion on a review of video footage.
Police responded to a 911 call about 11 hours later, shortly before 5 p.m., and found the unidentified man, who was pronounced dead at the scene, the police said. The man, who had been shot in the head and the neck, was Black, but no evidence suggests he or the other man were targeted for their race, Mr. Sautner said.
“The connectivity here is obviously that both gentleman are homeless,” he said.
Mayor Eric Adams called the 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.
Mr. Adams said the city must address the problem of its homeless, whose ranks have been steadily increasing. He said he had recently been on the subway at 2 a.m. and seen “far too many people” who appeared to consider the subway system their only prospect for shelter.
“We must make sure that does not continue,” Mr. Adams said. “That is my commitment and obligation.”
Similar calls were heard in 2019, after another grisly attack left four homeless people dead in Chinatown. The man charged with murder in that case, Randy Rodriguez Santos, was himself homeless.
