Two Shootings, Two Dead on West Side; Police Hunt for Suspects

Two separate shootings occurred in Manhattan just hours apart on the night of June 4.

Police responded first to a 911 call of an assault in progress just after 9pm in Chelsea that night. Upon arrival, officers found 21-year-old Raqiese Cohen unconscious and unresponsive with a gunshot wound to the neck in front of his home at 431 W. 17th St.

Just 90 minutes later in Midtown, police responded to an eerily similar situation. A 911 call of a male shot in front of 345 W. 42nd St., where officers found 30-year-old Bronx resident Marco Reyes with a gunshot wound to the head. Both victims were rushed by EMS in critical condition to NYC Health and Hospitals/Bellevue, where they succumbed to their injuries and were pronounced deceased.

No arrests have been made in either case.

The shootings came just a day after the NYPD and Mayor’s Office touted historic declines in crime so far this year at the mayor’s weekly press briefing on June 3. Accompanied by NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Eric Adams stood behind two tables displaying some of the 2,200 illegal guns seized by police this year. But Adams said he also recognized that while crime stats show crime is down, it is a problem if people still do not feel safe.

“We knew we were being successful in bringing down crime,” Adams said. At the same time, he acknowledged, “but the reality was that New Yorkers weren’t feeling safe. And we wanted to match that. And we knew we had to make sure that our strategy was about removing illegal guns from our streets. As you see, these examples here, these are not props. These are guns that bad people were carrying. Just look at these weapons that you see here and with a scope, you’re seeing weapons that are very dangerous, automatic weapons.”

Tisch at the same press conference said shootings and murders are back to pre-COVID levels and at an all-time low.

“Last month, murders declined 46 percent, shooting incidents dropped 39 percent, and shooting victims fell 38 percent,” Tisch said. “And that momentum has carried through the year, making 2025 so far the safest year on record for both shootings and murders.

“For the first five months of this year, there were 264 shootings and 112 homicides. Not only are those figures back to the pre-COVID range, but both are below any previous year as far back as crime stats have been kept.”

“The lowest number of shootings and homicides in recorded history of this city,” said Adams. “That is an amazing achievement.”

Despite the positive statistics, public opinion remains mixed. “It’s getting bad, man. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened here,” a doorman working on West 42nd Street the morning after the Midtown shooting told Straus News. “If it’s happening in a touristy area like this, can you imagine what it’s like everywhere else?” he added, gesturing toward Times Square just a few blocks away.

“If the cops would get out of their cars and be seen more often, these things wouldn’t happen,” he added.

The crime scene also caught the attention of a young couple visiting from Australia who happened to be returning to their hotel late that night.

“It was scary,” the woman said . “We had no idea what was going on.”

“We still feel safe,” her partner said. They both said that the experience wouldn’t impact their trip, even joking that he’d still prefer living in New York over Austin, Texas, where they currently reside.

As of the afternoon of June 6 both shootings remain unsolved, and police are asking anyone with information to come forward. At that time, no surveillance footage had been released.