(NEW YORK) — The alleged suspect in the unprovoked fatal shooting of 48-year-old Daniel Enriquez on a Q train in New York City was ordered held without bail on Wednesday.
Andrew Abdullah, 25, of Brooklyn, was arrested Wednesday after arranging a surrender through his pastor to officers at the 5th precinct, according to law enforcement sources.
During a court appearance Wednesday, prosecutors described Abdullah as a man with an extensive criminal history who, after allegedly shooting Enriquez in the chest, told the other passengers to put their cell phones away, according to ABC New York station WABC-TV.
Abdullah’s attorney, Kristin Braun of Legal Aid Society, told the judge that only one of six witnesses in a lineup could identify the suspect, whom officials have said was wearing a mask on the train, WABC reported.
Abdullah did not speak during the arraignment, according to WABC. His next court date is scheduled for Friday.
Abdullah has about 20 prior arrests, including an outstanding gun charge from last year, according to sources. He also has prior arrests for assault, robbery, menacing and grand larceny, sources said.
Abdullah has three cases that are still pending, including an April arrest for fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property for allegedly being found with a stolen motorcycle, as well as a June 2021 arrest for violating a protective order and March 2021 arrest for assault.
“We moved over 2,900 illegal guns off our streets,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a Tuesday press conference on the arrest. “As soon as we placed them on, more return with bad guys who feel comfortable enough even after we arrest them, that they can come back out and wreak havoc on our city. The industry pumps guns into the community faster than we can take them out. The rest of the shooter doesn’t change what is going on every day in this industry.”
Detectives have also recovered the gun used in the shooting.
It is believed the suspect handed the gun to a homeless man as he fled the Canal Street station. The homeless man then apparently sold the gun for $10 to a third person, who reported it to police, the sources said.
The New York Police Department released surveillance photos Monday of the suspect believed to have shot Enriquez taken shortly after he exited the subway.
The motive for the shooting is still unknown.
In January 2020, Abdullah was arrested as part of a gun-related case and in May 2017 he was charged with second-degree attempted murder as part of an 83-count federal indictment of the Harlem-based street gangs Fast Money and Nine Block. Abdullah was sentenced to three years in federal prison, but served just four months before being released in 2019.
Witnesses say the suspect, alleged to be Abdullah, was pacing back and forth in the last car of a Manhattan-bound train around 11:45 a.m. when he pulled out a gun and fired it at Enriquez unprovoked, according to NYPD Chief of Department Kenneth Corey.
The shooting comes a little over a month after a Brooklyn subway rider opened fire on a train car, wounding 10 people. The suspect in that shooting, Frank James, was arrested one day later in lower Manhattan.
Transit crime is up 62.5% in the city year-to-date from 2021, according to NYPD statistics.
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