A manhunt has begun in New York and Washington on Monday to locate a man who allegedly carried out a series of homeless attacks, killing at least two and injuring three others.
“A ruthless killer is free, but we will stop him and put him in jail,” the mayors of the two American cities said in a joint statement.
“It’s urgent: he must not injure or kill anyone else,” added New York Mayor Eric Adams and Washington Mayor Muriel Boozer in a rare joint press conference yesterday.
They jointly asked the homeless living in these cities to seek refuge in reception centers until the perpetrator of the attacks is arrested.
The two mayors released photos of the suspect, a bearded man, thin and rather young, with a shaved head, and promised to offer a reward of up to $ 70,000 for any information that could help locate him.
This man, according to the authorities, is responsible for at least five attacks that were committed “cold” in “the same way” against men sleeping on the street.
To make sure there would be no more casualties, police contacted colleagues across the country, said New York Police Chief Kitshad Sigwell.
The homeless “are already fighting daily for their survival”, she stressed, pledging to arrest the perpetrator “quickly”.
Sleeping bag
The first two attacks took place on March 3 and 8 northeast of Washington. The victims, who were attacked with bullets, survived.
On Wednesday, March 9, always in Washington, the fire brigade intervened to extinguish the fire that had broken out in a tent of a homeless man. The body of a man was found inside. According to the autopsy, the man had been shot several times and had been stabbed.
Police estimate that the perpetrator then went to New York.
A 38-year-old man was found wounded by a bullet, but alive, in southern Manhattan on Saturday morning.
Late in the afternoon in the same area, police located another man with wounds to the neck and head, dead inside a sleeping bag.
CCTV footage showed the perpetrator shooting at the homeless man around 6am in the morning, while he was asleep, shortly after the first incident.
These pictures show a man dressed in black, wearing a hood and blue gloves. He walks around a man hooded in a sleeping bag and kicks him to see if he is asleep, looks around and then shoots him.
According to Robert Cody, the chief of the Washington police, one of the police officers who watched the videos linked the incidents in the American capital and New York.
“Homeless in danger”
In New York live many homeless people who sleep on the street. Adams, a Democrat who took over as mayor on Jan. 1, announced in mid-February a plan to remove homeless people sleeping in New York City’s vast subway network, especially in winter when temperatures are dropping. zero points.
Adams had announced the plan after various crimes came to light, including the murder of a woman who was pushed on the subway lines by a homeless man with psychological problems.
His plan was denounced by some organizations, including the Homeless Union, which pointed out that “people settle in the subway because they have no other place to go.”
“Despite lucrative titles, New York homeless people are more likely to be victims of crime than to be the perpetrators,” the group said Sunday, urging Adams to “acknowledge that his policies endanger them.”
He even asked the mayor of New York “to admit that his policies endanger the homeless.”
Adams refused to take part in the controversy, saying only that “it is not decent to sleep in a subway station.”
In Washington, the number of homeless people has also risen since the pandemic, with organizations blaming authorities for shutting down several reception centers, some of which were located near the White House.
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