Police said a 42-year-old Manhattan man who had reportedly been armed with an “air gun” was apprehended without incident in the Highbridge section of The Bronx on Tuesday afternoon, July 29, as part of an emergency response operation seemingly involving the NYPD’s bomb squad. The incident came one day after an active shooter killed four innocent people, including Bronx Police Officer Didarul Islam of the 47th Precinct, in Midtown Manhattan and later shot himself.

 

Police said at around 12.30 p.m. on Tuesday, officers from the 44th Precinct responded to a 911 call regarding [a person with] a possible firearm at 1402 Nelson Avenue located between Edward L Grant Highway and West 172nd Street. “Upon arrival, officers conducted a canvass,” police said. “A person of interest was apprehended without incident and the investigation remains ongoing.”

 

Residents said several streets in the surrounding area of the block had been cordoned off by police for around three hours, preventing some from returning to their homes.

 

Pursuant to an ongoing investigation, police later said Rodney Lance of Nagle Avenue in the Inwood section of Manhattan was arrested the same day at 2.36 p.m.  They said he was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon, menacing, and harassment. He is presumed innocent unless and until convicted in a court of law.

 

In videos seen here and here of the scene, courtesy of wilquismejiaoficial, several police officers in tactical gear are seen responding to the scene. The NY Post reported that the man taken into custody was seemingly known to police as an emotionally disturbed person, and had had prior interactions with the NYPD.

 

We duly followed up with the police press office and asked if a search warrant on the suspect has been carried out at his home in Inwood, if a weapon was recovered from the scene in The Bronx [amid an unconfirmed report elsewhere that it had not been], confirmation of whether police know for sure if the suspect is an emotionally disturbed person, if the suspect had been arrested previously and if so, for what offenses. The NYPD later informed us the weapon had been recovered at 1402 Nelson Avenue on Wednesday, July 30.

We also asked if a photo of the suspect was available. He was seen from the back in other media reports dressed in dark-colored shorts, a dark-colored T-shirt, white sneakers, some type of hat or durag, and was carrying a dark-colored backpack and what appeared to be some type of rifle which police said appears to have been an air gun (a gun that shoots pellets). He appeared to be White.

 

We were informed by the NYPD press office that they do not have the information we requested to hand and are following up. We will share any further information we receive on the matter. Police were still at the scene later on Tuesday afternoon investigating the incident.

 

Later, we spoke to a number of people in the area. Speaking in Spanish, one woman who was with a young child and who has lived in the area for 11 years told us that nothing like it had ever happened in the neighborhood, and she never saw anyone acting erratically. She said she had been a little bit scared but heard the perpetrator was apprehended and added that she had been detained for around an hour before she could re-enter her building.

 

Speaking in Spanish, Manuel Romero, another resident, said, “The police cordoned off the area and said nobody could go out because there was a suspect who had a rifle.” Asked how residents were notified (if it was via a megaphone/loudspeaker), he said, “Well we saw it online.” Norwood News had also shared the NYPD alert online earlier on Tuesday. He said the police had activated their units also by road, sea, and air, with helicopters and drones. “It was a tense moment,” the man said.

 

He continued, “Everyone was shocked. We didn’t know what was happening.” He said he, himself, didn’t see the suspect because he was on lockdown inside his home but the neighbors did. Thanks be to God we’re all ok,” he said. “I feel better now.”

Diamond, a resident of 1402 Nelson Avenue, said she had been caring for an elderly lady nearby when she went out for lunch and was later prevented from returning to her job for several hours. She said the woman’s husband was with her.

 

“I don’t know what happened,” Diamond told us. “All I seen was the officers here and they were all like having their police helmet on and suited up.” We asked if they ressembled a bomb squad and she said they did. Mimicking various stances / communication gestures, she said, “They were just like this on the corners and right over here and stuff and I was asking, “Why is there caution tape over here too?'”

 

She continued, “The caution tape was all the way back there. They had the officers back there. They had a whole lot of officers. I was just so confused. I said, ‘I need to go this way.’ They said, ‘No, you can’t go this way. You got to go to the back. You got to walk to the back.’ So I was on a break trying to make a call, the officer came down on me and said like, ‘Mam, you got to go. You got to keep walking.'”

 

Diamond said she asked why and was informed that it was for her safety. “So, I was like ok,” she said, adding that she was aware of the active shooter incident that had unfolded in Manhattan the previous day. “I was like, this is basically the recap of yesterday,” she said. “It was just so crazy because I was home when the first incident happened and the second time this happened, I’m out and you know working and I come down and see all of this stuff, I was so confused.”

 

Laughing a little nervously, she continued, “It’s not them doing a repeat of Midtown mass shooting. Then, I came to find out because I asked one of my neighbors, ‘What’s going on?’ They was like, ‘No, it’s because a guy had somebody on hostage.’ I said, ‘A hostage? Oh no, we ain’t doing that today! We is definitely not doin’ that today. We gots to go!’ And then, I had to call my client and tell them you know I’m stuck out here.”

 

Laughing, Diamond added, “I had to go to the back to McDonalds. I was hungry. I’m not gonna lie. I was hungry. All of this stuff was like… I was more so like… thinking about food! I swear to God and I didn’t know what else to say about it. I called later and said, ‘Is the coast clear?’ She said, ‘Yeah, the coast’s clear. They got him!'”

 

Diamond said she walked back and got back in around 3 p.m., having left around 1 p.m. “I literally had to wait until they was finished doing whatever they had to do,” she said, adding, “Was I scared? No. Honestly, I wasn’t. I was more so, like I said, thinking about food and wantin’ to get back and go and do my little shopping for the lady and then go back home.”

 

Asked if she had any idea who the perpetrator was (before it was known that he lived in Manhattan), she said, “I have no idea.” We asked how she felt knowing that someone (potentially) dangerous was in her building. She explained that she wanted to move anyway but this was just another reason to do so.

 

“This is a bit too much for me,” Diamond said. We asked if she had seen anyone acting erratically and she said she had not. “Just normal activities,” she said. Taking a deep breath in, she said, “When I stepped out the building this morning, I said, “Ah it’s going to be a great day today! Imma goin’ to have a good day and then I see the guy that usually every morning comes out…. he’ll come with the water hose and clean the street and he was like, ‘Good Morning!’ I said, ‘Good Morning!’ and then went upstairs. Nothing unusual happened.”

 

Remarking that it looked fairly modern, we asked if it was a nice building to live in or if there was maybe some reason for someone to have a grievance over repairs for example. “In my honest opinion, no,” she said. “I’ve been having a lot of repair issues. I just had a lot of repair issues yesterday.”

 

Diamond said she’s been living in the building four years. “Something like this never really happens so it was a shock and it’s more like.. I’m not saying it’s super embarrassing. It’s more just  proving my point on why I need to move from over here. It really doesn’t help. I really need to move out of here anyway. I’m already going through enough stuff with the neighbors.” She said she had a physical altercation with one, saying the woman had an “actual problem.”

She continued, “I don’t know what is her real problem but she has a problem with me.” Asked if she was aggressive, Diamond said, “We need to move. It’s best for my interests and my child. I don’t want that type of drama around me.”

 

In the wake of the active shooter incident in Manhattan on Monday, given there was some backlash from some people against Democratic mayoral candidate Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (A.D. 36) over his prior remarks some years ago on defunding the police, which he has since walked back, as reported, we asked Diamond what she thought of Mamdani’s current proposal of creating a community safety unit manned by mental health professionals to handle situations involving people with mental health issues and freeing up overburdened police officers to focus solely on crime.

 

We mentioned that in California, where that approach has been tried, some of the feedback has been that some social workers are not necessarily comfortable (understandably) responding to certain crises involving people with mental health issues when they are also armed (even though this is not always the case, but is sometimes the case) and that they end up calling the police for assistance anyway.

 

Norwood News had also discussed this point several years ago with former progressive Democratic State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi (S.D. 34). Read that story here.

 

Diamond said, “Honestly, I wish they had more mental health professionals, especially for people like me that’s going through a lot of things, and I’m not going to say that I would be one of those (a person who places another person in potential danger) but I feel like I would be one of those people who could come and talk [….] about it without it being, ‘Oh you have to go to this person or you have to go to that person. You have to call this agency or you have to call that agency.'”

 

We asked if she was in favor of more mental health support for everyone across the board and she said, “Yeah, that’s very important because there is going to be more potential people out there killing people like this on a regular basis.” We asked if she was in favor of offering broad mental health support to everyone as a preventative measure in order to stop crises from happening before they get to that point. “Yeah, I feel like they need to address it because the more they don’t address it, the more it’s going to be more killings and people like me, who is innocent, are going to be the targets. I don’t want to be a part of that so let’s prevent this from happening before it gets worse.”

 

Help is available for anyone dealing with mental health issues. Read our recent health check here. For immediate mental health support in New York City, anyone can contact NYC Well 24/7 by calling 888-NYC-WELL (692-9355), texting “WELL” to 65173, or visiting NYC.gov for online chat. For crisis situations, dialing 988 connects individuals to free, confidential crisis counseling and support. 

 

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crimestoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, or on X @NYPDTips.

 

All calls are strictly confidential.