After an execution-style killing in Howard Beach, police are looking for any information on the men who chased down a car and shot the driver early Saturday morning.
At about 4:30 a.m. on Dec. 3, neighbors said they woke up to four or five loud pops from gunshots.
Witnesses said they then saw a black late-model Lexus chasing a man in a white 2010 Acura before the Acura crashed into two parked cars at the corner of Huron and 155th streets.
Two men jumped out from the Lexus and ran over to the Acura where a man was slumped over the wheel, said witnesses, who did not give their names out of fear of reprisal.
“We got you,” one man was heard saying. “They got out to make sure he was dead; I watched them from my window,” one witness said.
Police found 13 shell casings at the corner of Lahn Street and 155th Avenue, one block away from where the car came to rest. Additional shell casings were found near the car.
Police said the victim, 29-year-old Ronny Valdez of 155-40 Lahn Street, was shot nine times before the shooters fled.
“I heard gunshots and then someone screaming ‘call 911’,” said Teresa Gulino, who lives on Lahn Street.
Gulino was gathered with other neighbors around the corner from her home, and could still hear the drone of the Acura’s engine before police reached in to turn off the ignition.
As police tried to piece together the details of the murder scene, a young woman came running from Lahn Street. She approached a sergeant from the 106th Precinct saying she wanted to know where her boyfriend was. He hadn’t come back from parking her car, and she had came out to look for him.
When the police officer tried to calm her down, she started repeatedly saying, “Where is he? That’s my car. Where is he? Did he get arrested?”
When a bystander told the woman that her boyfriend had been shot and was dead, she went into a frenzy—crying and screaming.
“We walked her around to the house to get her belongings and her dog,” said Gulino, “Then a neighbor from the next block offered the young woman a place to come until her family or someone could come to get her.”
The police later canvassed the block and found the woman and took her to the 106th Precinct.
Residents said they had seen the Lexus in the chase idling around the neighborhood in conspicuous places during the last week, and neighbors speculated consistently that they believe drugs were involved in the gangland-style killing.
The block was closed off overnight and into the next afternoon when crime dogs were brought to the scene. Police said they have not established a motive.
Anyone with information should call NYPD’s anonymous Crime Stoppers hotline at (800) 577-TIPS. You can also submit tips online at www.nypdcrimestoppers.com or via text message to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577.
By Jeremiah Dobruck
The late model Acura came to rest after it crashed into two parked cars. Witnesses say two of the shooters got out of their car to make sure the driver was dead. One of the men allegedly yelled out “...we got you now” before getting back into the car which sped off toward the Belt Parkway entrance on 155th Avenue.
