Woman killed and 2 others wounded in shooting near New York City migrant shelter
NEW YORK — A woman was killed and two people were injured in a shooting near a migrant shelter in New York City as a crowd gathered. the results of the presidential elections in Venezuelaaccording to the police.
A gunman opened fire at a gathering in a park on Randall’s Island around 3:30 a.m. At least two of the people shot — the woman who died and another woman who was wounded — were believed to be residents of the shelter, New York Police Department Patrol Chief John Chell said.
The suspected gunman, identified by police as a man angry about an earlier robbery, opened fire from about 100 feet (30.5 meters) away and fled on a moped, Chell said. No arrests have been made.
A 44-year-old woman died from gunshot wounds to the face and back, police said. A 31-year-old woman who was shot in the back and a 32-year-old man who was shot in the throat were hospitalized in stable condition. Police did not release their names.
Chell said police believe the gunman was retaliating after being the victim of an earlier gunpoint robbery. About 50 people were gathered on a sports field a few hundred feet from the shelter, where on any given night some 3,000 migrants sleep on cots in massive tents.
“We know why they were there — many were celebrating the elections in Venezuela,” said NYPD spokesman Tarik Sheppard. But since the island is open to the public, he said, “there’s no way to determine whether everyone who was there was actually staying at this facility.”
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council announced Monday that President Nicolás Maduro has won a third six-year term, defeating retired diplomat Edmundo González. Maduro’s critics dispute the result, and thousands of people protested in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, on Monday.
Randall’s Island, a spit of parks, fields and government buildings bordering Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, is home to New York City’s largest reception center for asylum seekers.
The shelter opened in August 2023 amid a dramatic influx of migrants as Republicans Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered many of them to be bused from the border directly to Democratic-run towns. The shelter, built on sports fields on the southern tip of Randall’s Island, also includes tents for food and sanitation.