Good morning. It's Tuesday. We'll look at the search for the gunman who the authorities say targeted homeless people as they slept on the streets in New York and Washington. We'll also put questions to Dr. Dave Chokshi, who stepped down as the city's health commissioner yesterday. |
 | | Spencer Platt/Getty Images |
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The shootings came at an emotionally charged moment in the relationship between New York City and the thousands of people who live on the streets. They also came several weeks into a campaign by Mayor Eric Adams to remove homeless people who use the subway system for shelter. |
Random attacks across the city — some fatal and many committed by homeless people, according to the police — have led to homeless people being cast as a social peril that needs to be controlled. People living on the streets and in the subways stoked concern during the pandemic, both for their own well-being and for the well-being of some of the people they come in contact with. |
As investigators fanned out on Monday, canvassing the streets and looking for surveillance video that would identify the gunman, this much was known: The attacker has shot at least five homeless men, officials say — three in Washington between March 3 and March 9, and two in Lower Manhattan on Saturday. |
Two people have died — one man in Washington who was shot and stabbed repeatedly and whose tent was set on fire, and the other in SoHo. The attacker kicked that man, who was sleeping in a doorway, before shooting him in the head and neck. By the time the man was discovered — when officers answered a 911 call shortly before 5 p.m. — he was dead. |
The homeless man in SoHo had been a fixture in the neighborhood for years. Shopkeepers and street vendors knew him as "Gambia," for the country where he said he had been born. They described a polite man who scraped by on contributions after an apparent mental breakdown. |
The police posted fliers with pictures of a suspect who had been caught on surveillance video in both cities. The police said the suspect in all five attacks had been dressed in dark clothing and had struck between midnight and dawn. |
Authorities connected the cases in the two cities after a police captain in Washington who was investigating the killing of a homeless man there saw a photo of the suspect in the New York attacks. Ballistics analyses showed that the same gun had been used in the shootings, according to a federal law enforcement official. |
Adams announced a wide-ranging plan last month to remove homeless people who shelter in the subway. It called for more mental health services and housing options for homeless people who are cleared from stations and trains. But it also said there should be stricter enforcement of transit system rules. It directed the police to evict anyone who was not on a train or a platform to go somewhere. |
That has left some homeless people feeling as if they have no options. Ossie Andrew, 42, said he considered living in the streets and on trains safer than in group shelters, even though he was jumped while sleeping on a subway train about a month ago. |
"Once it's late at night, those are risks that you take," he said. |
It's a mostly sunny day in the low 60s, with a partly cloudy evening and temps dropping to the mid-40s. |
In effect until Thursday (Purim). |
A health commissioner's goodbye |
 | | New York City Mayor's Office, via Associated Press |
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Monday was Dr. Dave Chokshi's last day as New York City's health commissioner. Chokshi took the job five months after the pandemic began. His predecessor, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, had resigned, citing "deep disappointment" with Mayor Bill de Blasio's handling of the crisis. |
Dr. Chokshi oversaw aggressive moves to bring down case counts, including a proof-of-vaccination requirement for indoor dining and a vaccine mandate for teachers and other municipal workers that was eventually broadened to all private employees. |
What more can the city do to raise booster rates among the elderly and in general, since they're still not where the city wants them to be? And what about vaccination rates among children ages 5 to 12? |
Despite the astounding overall progress with our vaccination rates, these are two areas where we need to do more and go further. |
With respect to booster doses or what we've been terming staying up-to-date with respect to your vaccination status, we do want people who are at higher risk — whether it's older adults or people with underlying health conditions — to get their booster doses. A lot of this has involved direct outreach, particularly via people's clinicians or other messengers, whom they already trust. We have boots-on-the-ground efforts in NYCHA developments. |
For pediatric vaccinations, I think it's somewhat similar. We're also making sure that we are keeping our ear to the ground with respect to what we're hearing from parents in terms of their reasons to choose to get their child vaccinated or not. And then working with our Department of Education colleagues so that parents continue to hear about the benefits of vaccination from their school leaders, their teachers and other adults whom they really trust. |
You're a physician, too. Is there an argument that you found that has worked well with Black New Yorkers to convince them to get vaccinated? |
So much revolves around trust. What I've found in my own clinical practice is that it's not so much about marshaling the right argument as it is about starting with a listening ear. |
What you often end up hearing are stories of discrimination, of legitimate reasons for mistrust in the medical establishment or in government. |
What that means is that we have to address inequity from a place of humility. From a place where we take a step back in order to allow people who are from communities, or who have served communities for years — often decades — to take the leading role. |
This is what we tried to do in our vaccine equity strategy — really empowering community-based organizations, faith leaders and local community-based clinicians to actually play the leading role. And we need to have much more of that. |
What more can the city do to balance patient loads among hospitals in a crisis? Are nurses in particular an issue in terms of hiring more staffers? |
Yes — broadly, we need more nurses across many different settings. And the nurse work force is one that has been strained and also requires a huge amount of support and investment in the months and years ahead. |
We left the bar, scarfed down some pizza across the street and hopped in a taxi back to Brooklyn after a night out dancing in the West Village. |
It was 2014, and RuPaul's new single, "Sissy That Walk," was our song of the night. My girlfriend pulled it up on her phone and started playing it out loud. |
We sang along and danced in our seats. When the song ended, the driver motioned for my friend to hand over the phone. |
He plugged it in, and the song started playing again through the car's speakers. Then again, and again. |
Each time, the driver turned up the volume, dancing along with us as we sailed over the Brooklyn Bridge, windows down, singing into the night. |
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. |
Melissa Guerrero, Jeff Boda and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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