NEW YORK and PHILADELPHIA (Audacy) — Police in New York City and Washington, D.C. are searching for a man they believe killed two homeless men and wounded three more in targeted attacks in both cities in less than two weeks. The NYPD is also investigating the death of a sixth homeless man who was found in Lower Manhattan on Sunday.
Philadelphia police said Monday they are increasing their patrols in "affected communities" in response to the killings, though they know of no specific connections to any such assaults in the city.
The suspected serial killer struck three times in Washington—on March 3, March 8 and March 9—and twice in Manhattan on March 12, the NYPD and D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department said in a joint news release late Sunday.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has joined the investigation. Authorities are now offering a $55,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
All five homeless victims were shot on the street “without provocation” by “the same suspect,” according to the police departments, who released images of the man they’re searching for. Chilling video shows the gunman cautiously walking up to one of the victims and kicking him several times before fatally shooting him at point-blank range.
“Given the similarity in the modus operandi of the perpetrator, common circumstances involved in each shooting, circumstances of the victims and recovered evidence, the NYPD, the MPDC and the ATF will jointly investigate these offenses,” the police departments said.
The three D.C. victims included a man who was shot and wounded on March 3, a man who was shot and wounded on March 8, and a man who was fatally shot and stabbed on March 9. In the third incident, authorities said a police officer found the victim inside a burning tent; an autopsy revealed stab and gunshot wounds on the victim.
Two more men were attacked in Lower Manhattan early Saturday morning, police said.
The first victim, 38, was shot in the arm on King Street, between Varick Street and Sixth Avenue in Hudson Square, around 5 a.m. Saturday. Police said he was sleeping on the street when a man came up and shot him before fleeing east down King Street. The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition.
About an hour later, a man was shot in the head as he was lying in a sleeping bag near Howard and Lafayette streets on the border of SoHo and Tribeca, police said. NYPD officers responding to a 911 call around 5 p.m. that day found the man in the sleeping bag with a gunshot wound to his head and neck. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
A third homeless man was found dead in Tribeca on Sunday evening, but police didn’t immediately link his death to the other attacks. The 43-year-old man was found dead around 6:30 p.m. at Greenwich and Murray streets in Tribeca. Police said they couldn’t find any bullet or stab wounds on his body and weren’t immediately sure how he died. The medical examiner is working to determine his cause of death.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said the city’s “homeless population is one of our most vulnerable and an individual preying on them as they sleep is an exceptionally heinous crime. We will use every tool, every technique and every partner to bring the killer to justice.”
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Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee called the killings “cowardly acts” and said, “We are committed to sharing every investigative path, clue and piece of evidence with our law enforcement partners to bring this investigation to a swift conclusion and the individual behind these vicious crimes to justice.”
ATF Director Marvin Richardson said the law enforcement agency is using “advanced ATF systems to conduct real-time analysis backed up by our ATF National Lab in Maryland to expedite the evidence and assist in the investigations and Washington, D.C. and New York City.”
Mayor Eric Adams said a task force composed of NYPD officers and a homeless outreach team would focus on finding unhoused people in the subway and other locations and would urge them to seek refuge at city-owned shelters.
“The case is a clear and horrific intentional act of taking the life of someone, it appears, because he was homeless,” Adams said at a news conference. “Two individuals were shot while sleeping on the streets, not committing a crime but sleeping on the streets.”
The attacks were reminiscent of the beating deaths of four homeless men as they slept on the streets in Manhattan’s Chinatown in the fall of 2019. Another homeless man, Randy Santos, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in those attacks.
Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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