Police have arrested the suspect accused of opening fire in a Times Square attack that wounded three, the New York Police Department announced on Wednesday.
Farrakhan Muhammad, 31, was apprehended by members of the U.S. Marshals Service in Florida, the NYPD confirmed on Wednesday. After a four-day manhunt, the NYPD says Muhammad was found having lunch in a car in a McDonald’s parking lot with a woman believed to be his girlfriend, as well as two dogs, just one day after the NYPD released his mug shot to the public.
Police are questioning the unidentified girlfriend as a person of interest, who reportedly departed from a hotel with Muhammad near the scene after the shooting, to determine whether she was knowingly harboring a fugitive, and authorities have not yet recovered the gun. Muhammad altered his appearance following the shooting by shaving parts of his head and some of his dreadlocks, authorities added.
THREE PEOPLE SHOT IN TIMES SQUARE
On Saturday, at a commercial Manhattan intersection near West 44th Street and 7th Avenue, Muhammad allegedly attempted to shoot his brother but missed, police said. The dispute was prompted by a turf war over a space where both illegally sold goods, and the brother confirmed he was the intended target, the NYPD continued. Muhammad is reportedly known to the NYPD for illegal vending in the Times Square region.
After the shots missed his brother, Muhammad then allegedly opened fire again, wounding three: a 4-year-old Hispanic girl from Brooklyn who was shot in the leg; Wendy Magrinat, a 23-year-old tourist from Rhode Island, who was also shot in the leg; and Marcela Aldana, a 43-year-old Hispanic woman who was shot in the foot.
“I started screaming, ‘I’m gonna die,'” Magrinat told CBS’s local New York affiliate. “It was, like, one of the worst experiences of my life.”
All three survived, and authorities recovered three shell casings that looked to be .25-caliber from the scene.
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The incident follows several recent high-profile shootings throughout the United States. Andrew Brown, Jr. was fatally shot by a sheriff’s deputy in North Carolina last month after the deputy attempted to serve a warrant, and the death of Ma’Khia Bryant, a teenager who was reportedly wielding a knife before being shot by a Columbus, Ohio, police officer, has led to an investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
