Bronx man slain over drugs shot 19 times in unusual, machine gun-like ‘burst of gunfire’
A 45-year-old man slain over drugs in his Bronx apartment building was shot 19 times in an unusual “burst of gunfire,” police said Wednesday.
“This was not a continued volley of gunshots, this was a burst of gunfire which very rarely do you hear of,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said of the Dec. 10 slaying of suspected drug dealer Raymond Garcia. “It wasn’t ‘bang, bang, bang.’ It was almost like it was a machine gun.”
Garcia was struck 19 times, with all of the bullets passing through his body, leaving 38 gunshot wounds.
“All I heard was one bang, and it didn’t sound like no gun to me,” resident Cynthia Lucas, 63, told the Daily News. “It sounded like a bomb, that’s how loud it was. I was scared to even look out the window.”
Surveillance video recovered by cops shows the gunman exiting a blue Honda and meeting up with Garcia moments before the 10 p.m. shooting on West Farms Road near Hoe Ave. in Longwood.
“They likely know each other,” Kenny said, adding that the gunman followed Garcia inside the building. “We see then very quickly the shooter runs back out of the building, gets in his car and drives away. The whole encounter lasts approximately 30 seconds.”
Cops searching Garcia’s apartment found packaging materials for narcotics as well as equipment linked to the production of ketamine and fentanyl. Garcia had never been arrested in New York but had been arrested repeatedly in Puerto Rico, mostly for drugs, Kenny said.
“We believe that the victim was involved in fake prescription pills,” Kenny said. “He had a pay stub for working at Bronx Terminal Market stating that he makes $568 a week — and he had over $70,000 in his bank account. So we believe that back in Puerto Rico he was known to be part of the narcotics trade.”
Medics rushed Garcia to Lincoln Hospital, but he couldn’t be saved. Investigators recovered 19 .40-caliber shell casings from the scene, Kenny said.
The gunman remains on the loose.
