Police have arrested a man suspected of harassing homeless men sleeping on the streets of New York City and Washington DC, killing at least two people and injuring three others in less than two weeks.
The suspect was taken into custody in Washington DC and was being questioned by police, the Metropolitan Police Department said on Twitter on Tuesday.
Police in the two cities released several security camera photos, including a close-up that clearly showed the man’s face, and urged people who might recognize him to contact authorities.
“More information will be provided,” the statement said on Twitter. “Thank you to the community for all your notices.”
On Monday, the mayors of New York and Washington DC asked for the public’s help in searching for the shooter. However, investigators then admitted that they knew little about the suspect or his motives.
Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and New York Mayor Eric Adams spoke together at a news conference Monday, urging everyone living on the streets to go to city shelters where they would be safer.
“We know that our residents outside of shelters already face many dangers on a daily basis and it is unconscionable that anyone would target this vulnerable population,” Bowser said.
Adams said New York police and homeless outreach teams would focus on searching the subways and other places to ask them to stay in municipal centers.
In Washington, city workers handed out flyers to homeless people, asking them to “be alert” and including multiple images of the suspect.
Detectives in the two cities began to suspect a link between the separate attacks on Sunday after a captain in the Metropolitan Police’s homicide department — and a former New York City resident — saw on social media the images posted by the New York police.
The man in those photos resembled the man wanted by his own department.
Washington Police Chief Robert Contee praised the coordination between the two police departments, saying that if the officer hadn’t made the connection “it could have been months” before the link between the two cases was discovered.
The first recorded attack was around 4 am on March 3 in Washington, DC, when a man was shot and wounded in the northeast section of the city, according to police. A second man was shot and wounded on March 8 shortly before 1:30 a.m.
At 3 am the next day, March 9, police and firefighters found a dead man in a burning tent. At first it was thought that he died from the fire, but the autopsy determined that he was stabbed and shot.
According to police, the killer then traveled to New York City and at about 4:30 am Saturday, a 38-year-old man, sleeping rough not far from Manhattan’s Holland Tunnel, was shot in the arm. The man screamed and the assailant fled.
About 90 minutes later, the shooter fatally shot another man on Lafayette Street in SoHo, police said.
