Officials with the New York City Police Department say a gang member with a lengthy rap sheet has been charged with second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a Goldman Sachs employee on a train midday Sunday.
Andrew Abdullah, 25, has been charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a firearm for the murder of 48-year-old Goldman Sachs employee Daniel Enriquez on a Manhattan-bound Q train approaching the Canal Street station at 11:42 a.m, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said at a press conference Tuesday.
“Andrew Abdullah was well-known to the criminal justice system, but again and again, his criminal offenses were not enough to keep him off our streets,” NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell stated at the press conference.
Essig said witnesses reported seeing a man, later identified as “Nine Block” gang member Abdullah, mumbling to himself and pacing aboard a train car. Allegedly, the only coherent words he said were “no phones.” Essig asserted that the man, “without any prior interactions or provocation,” approached Enriquez and fired a single round from a nine millimeter into his chest. The 48-year-old victim was later pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital, according to Essig.
Abdullah deboarded the train after it arrived at the station, fled up the stairs, and allegedly handed the nine-millimeter Ruger to a homeless man, whom — according to Essig — police interviewed. The man said he did not know the suspect.
“Investigation and in-depth interviews later led to the recovery of that gun,” Essig explained.
Investigators canvassed surveillance and witness video at the scene and learned that the suspect was a black male who donned a black hooded sweatshirt and grey sweats. Transit officers made contact with him shortly after the description materialized, but he was not detained. Surveillance footage later revealed that he had “altered his appearance” by removing the sweatshirt, according to Essig.
On Tuesday, the NYPD tweeted out a photograph of Abdullah, and he was subsequently arrested at his lawyer’s office three hours later, Sewell said.
Essig chronicled Abdullah’s lengthy criminal history dating back to 2016, which includes an attempted murder charge.
“In May of 2017, he was a defendant in a Polo Ground gang takedown by the Gun Violence Suppression Division,” Essig said. “He was charged with attempted murder, robbery, and conspiracy in the first degree. For that, he received a 30-month sentence, with two years post-release supervision.”
He was also arrested on charges of assault in 2016, 2017, and 2021, as well as criminal contempt in 2021 and Grand Larceny Auto last month for allegedly stealing a Lexus.
During the press conference, Sewell slammed soft-on-crime policies and the state’s bail reform laws:
The most basic purpose of the criminal justice system is to keep people safe and in the only state in our nation where a judge is not allowed to consider dangerousness when setting bail, this was yet another failure of that system and now Daniel Enriquez is gone. His family and loved ones are suffering and they rightfully want to know why. Well there is no valid reason why, because this horrific crime should never have happened, and I said two weeks ago, after the shooting of our officer Dennis Vargas, that we need to right these wrongs.
The Detectives’ Endowment Association labor union echoed her sentiment.
“The work of DEA members is relentless — but New Yorkers should ask why this violent recidivist was allowed to walk free and when will politicians wake up?” the association tweeted.