Six young men were shot, two fatally, in a pair of Bronx shootings seven hours apart, with the gunmen in one of the killings crashing their getaway car a few blocks away, police said Tuesday.
The bloodshed comes just five days after Mayor Adams vowed to send more than 1,000 cops to the Bronx to tamp down a surge of violent crime in the borough.
In the first incident, five victims were congregating outside a smoke shop on Allerton Ave. near White Plains Road in Allerton when a gray Honda rolled up about 7:30 p.m. Monday, witnesses told police.
At least four people jumped out of the Honda and opened fire at the group, hitting most of them in the legs and arms. Jamari Henry, 25, was hit multiple times in the chest and body.
The shooters returned to the Honda and sped off, only to crash the car a half mile away at Arnow and Hone Aves., officials said.
Medics rushed all five victims to Jacobi Medical Center, where Henry died. He lived in the Wakefield section of the Bronx, according to cops.
A 27-year-old man shot in the foot, a 25-year-old man hit in the arm, a 21-year-old man also hit in the arm and another 27-year-old man with a graze wound to the leg are all expected to recover.
Responding officers took the four suspects who crashed into custody. One of them was injured during the crash and was taken to Jacobi Medical Center.
Three firearms were found in the car, officials said. Charges against the suspects were pending Tuesday.
About 2 a.m. Tuesday, 21-year-old Jontay Davis was found shot in the head behind St. Barnabas Hospital on Third Ave. near E. 182nd St. in the Belmont section of the Bronx. Medics rushed him inside but he could not be saved.
Cops are trying to determine if Davis was actually shot behind the hospital or if someone dumped him there then fled. He lived less than a mile from the hospital, according to the NYPD.
Police have not ruled out the possibility he was wounded in the Allerton shooting but have not found any indication that is the case, a police source said.
Davis lived in Morris Heights, according to cops.
Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday said the NYPD would assign 1,000 extra cops to tamp down crime in the troubled borough.
He made the announcement on a basketball court at Haffen Park in Baychester, where a gang-related mass shooting at a basketball tournament on Aug. 23 left one man dead and four wounded, including a teen girl in critical condition with a bullet lodged behind her eye.
One day before the shooting at the tournament, four teens between the ages of 13 and 15 were wounded when gunfire broke out around 4 p.m. on Tratman Ave. near St. Peters Ave., down the block from The Pearly Gates playground in Westchester Square, cops said.
Back-to-back homicides occurred in the Bronx on Aug. 26, including one during a robbery. The next day, in Morrisania, disgruntled tenant Jimmy Avila fatally shot the superintendent of his apartment building during an ongoing dispute over access to the backyard, officials said.
Avila died of an apparent suicide on Rikers Island Saturday, the day after he was arraigned on murder charges, officials said.
The violence continued Friday night when three men were shot outside a church in Fordham. All of their injuries were minor, cops said.
The Bronx has had more shootings so far this year than all of Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island combined. The Bronx also leads the city with 69 murders this year, accounting for a third of the 206 murders that have happened across the five boroughs.
Despite the violence, the Bronx has seen a 19% drop in shootings so far this year compared to last year, down to 178 versus 220 people hit by gunfire by the end of August.
