The alleged Tompkins Square Park gunman behind two shootings at the East Village greenspace last month has been indicted on attempted murder and assault charges, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Monday.
Waldemar Alverio, 38, was initially arrested on the Lower East Side on March 26, several days after the shooting spree. A grand jury indicted him on April 15 on counts of second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault and attempted assault, and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
Bragg said that Alverio allegedly shot two people at Tompkins Square Park on March 16. Along with injuring two victims, both incidents “put numerous lives in danger,” rattling parkgoers and sending them running for cover.
“Our parks should be a place where New Yorkers and tourists can relax without fearing for their safety,” Bragg said in an April 15 statement. “Combatting gun violence remains my top priority, and my office will hold those who commit these serious acts of violence accountable.”
Prosecutors said the first shooting occurred at about 12:45 p.m. on March 16, when Alverio allegedly targeted two men who had chased, punched and kicked him. As they ran off, authorities noted, Alverio unzipped the bag he was carrying, pulled out a gun and started shooting.
Five shots, in all, were fired, one of which struck one of the fleeing men in the pelvis, leaving a bullet lodged in his hip. A 53-year-old female tourist wound up in the line of fire and was also struck in the hip; Bragg said the slug fractured the woman’s hip, which required surgical replacement and months of intense therapy in order to learn how to walk once more.
After firing the shots, law enforcement sources said, Alverio fled the park at the corner of East 9th Street and Avenue A, pedaling away toward 1st Avenue on his bicycle.
Five days later, authorities said, Alverio returned to Tompkins Square Park at about 12:05 p.m. on March 21 and confronted a group inside the greenspace. He pulled out a gun and fired upon them five times; though no one was injured, one of the shots went astray and struck a bedroom window in an apartment building across the way. Another slug, Bragg noted, hit an interior stairwell in a neighboring building.
At his April 15 arraignment on the indictment, Alverio was ordered held without bail by Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Laura A. Ward, and to return to court on June 24, according to court records. If convicted of the attempted murder charge, Alverio faces up to 25 years behind bars.
