A jealous 68-year-old man opened fire on his girlfriend and her younger lover during a violent standoff with police in the Bronx, authorities said.
The shooter, whose name has not been released, found his 70-year-old girlfriend with her 60-year-old boyfriend inside a ninth-floor apartment near East 173rd Street and Third Avenue around 9:30 p.m. Saturday, police said. He shot the woman once in the stomach and blasted the other man multiple times in the chest, according to sources.
When officers arrived at the scene, the enraged gunman refused to surrender. He barricaded himself inside the apartment with both wounded victims, triggering a tense confrontation with the NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit. The specialized unit eventually breached the barricade and took the shooter into custody.
Medics rushed both victims to Saint Barnabas Hospital. They were listed in stable condition as of Sunday afternoon, officials said.
Charges against the 68-year-old were still pending Sunday afternoon, according to police.
Sources described the bloody episode as a love triangle turned violent, with the older man unable to accept that his girlfriend had moved on with a younger partner. The three individuals involved in the deadly confrontation were all in their 60s and 70s.
The shooting unfolded in the Morrisania section of the Bronx, a neighborhood that has seen periodic bursts of gun violence despite broader declines in crime across New York City. Saturday night’s incident stood out both for the ages of those involved and for the dramatic barricade situation that followed.
The NYPD has not released the identities of any of the three people involved in the case. Investigators were still working to determine what led to the initial discovery and how the shooter obtained his weapon.
The incident marked a grim escalation in what began as a personal dispute among elderly New Yorkers, leaving two people hospitalized and one man facing serious criminal charges.
The case remains under investigation by Bronx detectives.