Police are looking for the gunman who fatally shot a 30-year-old inside a Harlem smoke shop on Sunday evening.
The hoodie-wearing suspect entered “Legends Exotic Candy Shop” at 300 West 142 St. at around 6 p.m, before firing multiple rounds at 30-year-old Jazeke Samuels, according to police.
Paramedics arrived on the scene shortly after the shooting and rushed Samuels to NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan, where doctors pronounced him dead.
The suspect, meanwhile, fled the location before police showed up.
No arrests have yet been made, and the investigation remains ongoing.
While it’s not clear whether the shooting was related to a robbery, smoke shops like the one where Sunday’s incident occurred, have become a hotbed for violent crime in recent months, as they deal in large amounts of cash and resellable merchandise.
As ABC7 reported, the situation has spurred bodega owners, represented under the trade group ‘United Bodegas of America,’ to seek firearm permits to defend themselves and their retail shops from violent crimes.
Between Jan. 1 and Nov. 26, when the most recent NYPD data is available, police had recorded 1,051 gunshot victims on the streets of the five boroughs, including 166 victims in Manhattan.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website, on Twitter @NYPDTips.
