A several hours-long manhunt spread out across New York came to a peaceful conclusion after the serial shooter suspected of carrying out three separate shootings turned himself into authorities.
The New York Police Department said during a press conference on Tuesday that Sundance Oliver, 28, had turned himself in at the 77th Precinct shortly after 7am, ending the nearly 24-hour shooting spree and manhunt across Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Throughout the deadly 16-hour shooting spree, Oliver is accused of fatally injuring two people, including a 17-year-old and a 21-year-old. He also injured a 96-year-old man in the ankle.
The attacks began unfolding at approximately 9.30am on Monday in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, when the 28-year-old allegedly attempted to rob a woman at gunpoint. During the scuffle, a round was fired that ended up missing the gunman’s intended victim and instead struck a 96-year-old man in a mobilised wheelchair who was waiting for the bus nearby, ABC 7 reported.
After fleeing the scene on foot, the suspected shooter is accused of carrying out his second attack on a 21-year-old man, just five hours later, inside the AI Smith Houses in lower Manhattan.
That victim, who was later identified as Kevon Langston, was shot in the chest and a leg. He was transported to Bellevue Hospital shortly after the 2.50pm shooting and pronounced dead there.
Oliver’s suspected third and final attack happened nearly 10 hours later, just before midnight. At that point, he allegedly went inside an apartment at the Kingsborough Houses in Brooklyn and shot a 17-year-old girl in the chest. She was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly after.
“Based on evidence collected at all three crime scenes and a number of investigative steps, it has been determined that the shooter is the same in all three of these incidents,” NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said at a Tuesday press briefing.
Chief of Detectives James Essig told reporters that Oliver was “very well-known” known to law enforcement, per the New York Post. The fatal victims of the shootings – the 17-year-old girl and the 21-year-old man – were believed to be “associated with” Oliver.
In an overnight update, police described the then still at-large suspect as “armed and extremely dangerous”, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said.
Prior to the Monday shooting spree, Oliver had been arrested 12 times, including for criminal possession of a weapon, two prior arrests for robbery, two prior arrests for menacing and various other charges.
At the time of the shooting, Oliver was on parole having only been released from state prison in Seneca County in July 2020, ABC 7 reported.
