A 35-year-old Mexican died and five other people were injured after being hit by bullets in a shooting that occurred during the afternoon rush hour last Monday, in an elevated subway station in the New York neighborhood of the Bronx.
Obed Beltrán Sanchez was identified by the police during the early hours of this Tuesday as the Mexican who died at the Mount Eden station.
The authorities added that he had no fixed address, The New York Times explained.
Authorities believe that Beltrán was not involved in the
argument between rival gangs
that led to the shooting, in which a 14-year-old girl, a 15-year-old teenager, a 29-year-old woman, and two men, ages 28 and 71, were injured.
New York police officers at the subway station where the shooting occurred in the Bronx.Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / AP
“We do not believe that this is a random shooting, but that it has its origins in a dispute between two groups that began in a subway car,” the traffic chief of the New York Police Department explained to the media.
Beltrán
suffered several gunshot wounds to the chest
and was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The Mexican consul in New York, Jorge Islas, reported on his X social network account that Beltrán was “a native of Tehuacán, Puebla” and that he had already contacted his family to offer his condolences.
“I offered the consular support and advice within our reach.”
How was the shooting
Just as the subway arrived at the Mount Eden station around 4:30 pm ET, and as people were exiting the subway, a person involved in the dispute began shooting, causing a crossfire as the subway Passengers were trying to get away from the place to take shelter, Kemper said.
[This is the home of the Lakewood Church shooter. Her son is torn between life and death]
Those involved in the fight
managed to flee the scene
and, so far, no arrests have been reported in connection with the case.
Yanesa Ortega, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) bus driver, told The New York Times that she was heading to her home near the station when she began to hear gunshots.
“We saw everyone screaming and running down the stairs.”
For his part, Heriberto Paredes told the newspaper that he was working in a store near the place when the shooting occurred and he saw a young man covered in blood and the desperation of the people.
“It looked like a battlefield.”
The New York Police Department published this Tuesday on its X social network account photographs of two men with their faces half covered who were on the station platform, and asked the community for help in identifying them.
In addition, the police also assured that
they had downloaded security images from the station's cameras
as part of the open investigation into the event.
[Mexicans in the US must obtain a credential to be able to vote in the next elections in their country]
The executive director of the MTA, Janno Lieber, said at a press conference that “the heart of New York breaks when people heading home and children returning from school to do their homework are subjected to acts of violence.” “Random violence like what happened here.”
Lieber appreciated the efforts of the governor, Kathy Hochul, and the mayor, Eric Adams, for “doing everything possible to get guns off the streets.”
Fall shootings
Figures from the New York police assert that, after the COVID-19 pandemic, shootings in the city
They have descended.
In 2023, 974 2023 took place
, 25% less compared to a previous year.
Furthermore, serious crimes that occur on the city's public transportation system are a tiny fraction of all crimes in the city.
An analysis by The New York Times stated that the rate was almost 1.8 for every million trips made.
The Police Department's Transit Office reported six shootings in the subway during 2023, three fewer than those recorded a year earlier.
Just last month, a 45-year-old man who worked as a guard died after being shot on a subway car in Brooklyn after trying to end a dispute between two passengers.
Last year,
42,987 deaths due to gun violence were reported
, an average of 118 events per day, which represents a decrease compared to the 47,430 that occurred in 2022, according to data from the organization Gun Violence Archive.