A triple-shooting at a hotel in New York City left one man dead and two others wounded, likely marking the first homicide of 2021 in a city that saw a soar in violent crimes last year.
The incident took place at the Umbrella Hotel on Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens shortly after 1 a.m. on Friday when a dispute erupted between the three victims and another group, police said, according to AMNY.
Authorities have described the killed victim as a 20-year-old man. He was shot in his torso and pronounced dead after emergency medical services rushed him to Queens Hospital Center, also known as NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens.
Another 20-year-old man was shot in the leg and is in stable condition at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens, police said. The third victim has been described as a 40-year-old man who was shot multiple times and is in critical condition at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.
The identification of the victims will not be disclosed until authorities first notify the families of the victims.
According to local agency PIX11, detectives believe there were between three and five people in the group who opened fire following the dispute. They all fled the scene.
Police have not announced any arrests yet and said the shooter(s) currently remain(s) at large as the investigation is ongoing.
At least five other shooting incidents were reported within the first two hours of the new year, according to CBS New York.
Of those five other victims, a 33-year-old woman was shot in the leg by a stray bullet at her apartment in Brooklyn on Lincoln Avenue. She currently remains at a local hospital in stable condition.
The other four shootings were reported in the Bronx and Washington Heights. Police haven’t announced any arrests yet for any of the incidents.
NYPD statistics (pdf) show last year as the deadliest since 2011 with at least 447 homicides, a 41 percent increase over 2019.