Man Is Charged With Murder in Random Scooter Shooting Spree

A man who drove a scooter through Queens, firing randomly at people on the street, was charged on Sunday with the murder of an 86-year-old man during the half-hour shooting spree, the police said.

The man, Thomas Abreu, 25, of Brooklyn, was charged with killing Hamod Ali Saeidi, of Queens, according to the police.

Mr. Abreu has also been charged with attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon in two other incidents: the firing of shots at a group of people near 108 Street and Jamaica Avenue on Saturday and at a 40-year-old man about four miles away, the police said.

The motive for the attacks remained unclear on Sunday.

Video from a security camera of the fatal shooting on Jamaica Avenue near 109th Street shows an assailant, who is on a scooter, slowly drive up to the 86-year-old man. The video, obtained by The Daily News, then shows the assailant raise a gun, point it at the man’s back and fire.

The man turns around as if startled before bending over, his shirt stained with blood.

The police are still investigating three other shootings on Saturday where three people were wounded. They took place over six miles from Brooklyn to Queens, and in each case witnesses said a man on a scooter opened fire.

Police officials said at a news conference on Saturday that the incidents — including the fatal shooting of Mr. Saeidi — were connected, and that the assailant was riding a Fly E-Bike without a license plate.

As of Sunday afternoon, Mr. Abreu had not been charged in the shootings where three people were wounded.

Mr. Abreu is expected to be arraigned in Queens on Sunday evening, according to a spokeswoman for the Queens district attorney. Authorities have not released the names of the other victims.

Edward A. Caban, the acting police commissioner, said in the news conference on Saturday that the “violent sequence of events” required an urgent, expansive search to track down the shooter.

“We’re all so grateful that this person is not out on our streets,” Commissioner Caban said after the arrest.

Mr. Saeidi came to the United States from Sana’a, Yemen in 1962, searching for “a new life,” said his son, Ahmed Alsaedi, 65, in an interview on Sunday.

He lived first in California, where he worked on a farm, then moved to New York City and opened grocery stores, according to his family. He retired from his real estate business 10 years ago. He had dreamed of returning one day to the small mountain village where he grew up and was planning a trip back to Yemen on July 17.

On Saturday morning, he left his home in Richmond Hill, Queens, a three-story gabled house with an Eid Mubarak flag hanging above the porch, for his daily ritual: a three- to-four mile walk around nearby Forest Park, then prayers at his mosque.

Later that day, Mr. Alsaedi got a call from his stepmother saying that his father was late.

They tried his phone, but there was no answer. Then, they received a call from a hospital.

The family later learned Mr. Saeidi, the father of three sons and three daughters, had been shot in the back on his way to the mosque.

“My heart is broken, my family is devastated,” Mr. Alsaedi said. “We couldn’t believe what happened. I need justice.”

Random shootings in New York City are rare. In 2006, Matthew Colletta, a 34-year-old bricklayer with a long history of mental illness and erratic behavior, drove for six hours through Queens, shooting at red cars. He injured four people and killed Todd Upton, a 51-year-old UPS driver who had just dropped off his daughter at college. In 2022, Frank James wounded 10 people when he opened fire on a Brooklyn subway car. The police arrested him in Manhattan about 24 hours later. That same year, Andrew Abdullah was charged in the fatal shooting of Daniel Enriquez on a Q train.

Gun violence in the city, which spiked during the pandemic, has declined. Shootings dropped around 25 percent in the last six months compared with the same time period last year, Commissioner Caban said at a news conference last week. Those numbers include the first weeks of summer, when violent crime historically rises.

The attacks on Saturday began just after 11 a.m. when the police responded to a 911 call about a 21-year-old man shot in the left shoulder near the corner of Ashford Street and Arlington Avenue in Brooklyn, said Chief Joseph Kenny, an assistant chief at the police detective bureau, at the news conference. The man was taken to an area hospital and treated for his injuries.

Then, around 17 minutes later, the police received more 911 calls. This time they were about a man who had been shot around four miles away on Jamaica Avenue near 109th Street in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Queens.

Officers rushed to the scene where they found Mr. Saeidi, the police said on Sunday. He was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

While at the scene, the officers received an alert about another shooting one block away. Mr. Abreu had fired several rounds at a group of people near 108th Street and Jamaica Avenue, the police said on Sunday. No one was injured.

Eight minutes later, at 11:35 a.m., an assailant shot a third man one mile east at 126 Street and Hillside Avenue in Queens, the police said. The man, 44, who was shot in the face, was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in critical condition, Chief Kenny said.

A minute later, a 40-year-old man was almost struck by a bullet near the corner of 131st Street and Jamaica Avenue. Mr. Abreu was charged in that shooting. Then, at 11:37 a.m., a fourth man, 63, was shot in the right shoulder around eight blocks away. The man was taken to the hospital and treated for his injuries.

The 63-year-old man was identified as Jorge Balseca by his wife, Maria Cecilia Balseca. She described him as a quiet “homebody” shot as he was crossing the street, on his way to run errands for the day.

The shooter did not say a word to her husband, who did not see the man who shot him, Ms. Balseca said.

“The police said it was a crazy man shooting people,” Ms. Balseca, 66, said.

Mr. Balseca, who has lived in the same Jamaica neighborhood for 20 years, fell to the ground and was helped by an ice cream shop owner who knows him and his family. The shop owner called Ms. Balseca’s daughter, and word quickly spread among Mr. Basleca’s relatives, who rushed to the hospital.

“I thought he was dead,” Ms. Balseca said in Spanish.

On Sunday, Mr. Balseca, a retired hazardous materials cleaner, remained in the hospital in stable condition.

“We were in shock,” Ms. Balseca said. “We never thought something like this would happen to him. He doesn’t even go out at night.”

It soon became clear the incidents were connected, and the police began a search for the assailant, collecting witness accounts and security video to trace the path of the shooter, Chief Kenny said on Saturday.

At 1:10 p.m., about two hours after the first shooting, officers arrested Mr. Abreu at the corner of Sutphin Boulevard and 94th Avenue in Queens. The police found a 9-millimeter pistol and an extended magazine inside the scooter, Chief Kenny said.

Waseem Saeidi, Mr. Saeidi’s 38-year-old grandson, said he was supposed to go with his grandfather to Yemen.

Had he survived, his grandfather would have forgiven the shooter, the younger Mr. Saeidi said.

“Me,” he said. “I don’t forgive him.”

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.