A 32-year-old man is stable in hospital following a shooting in the Bedford Park section of The Bronx on Friday night, May 15, police said.

 

An NYPD spokesperson said that the department received a call at 9.09 p.m. regarding a shooting at East 198th Street and Briggs Avenue. She said the man was shot in the chest, transported to St. Barnabas Hospital, and is in stable condition.

 

Police had cordoned off a block of East 198th Street between Bainbridge Avenue and Briggs Avenue after the incident.

 

A person in the area later told Norwood News the shooting took place at close range between the two avenues, closer to the Bainbridge Avenue side but not on the corner. The person said it happened close to the black vehicle in the attached photo further below.

THE CRIME SCENE after a man is shot on East 198th Street & Bainbridge Avenue, Bedford Park, Bronx May 15, 2026. V1 Video by Síle Moloney

Police said the motive for the shooting is unknown at present, the investigation is ongoing, and there is currently no description of a perpetrator.

 

One employee working in the area said he heard one gunshot. Another person with knowledge of the incident told Norwood News the victim had been with a few other people on the street when he was approached from behind by two other people, and was shot by one of them at close range.

 

Asked how close, the person said about a foot. Asked how the perpetrator and his colleague were dressed, he said “just regular, like black, whatever, I don’t know exactly.” He added that they were not wearing masks. Norwood News mentioned that there didn’t appear to be any blood on the street. The person said the shooting happened very quickly and then the perpetrators “ran and disappeared.” Asked what age, he said, “I think they were all young.”

 

Asked if the perpetrator already had the gun out when he approached from behind or if he took it out only after he came around to face the victim, the person said, “I think he already had the gun out. I don’t know exactly when he took the gun out because I was just on the phone. When he took the gun out, they were screaming. That’s when I heard all the thing… I looked. Before that, I wasn’t looking. It looked like they were just talking and stuff. That’s when I was on my phone.”

THE CRIME SCENE after a man is shot on East 198th Street & Bainbridge Avenue, Bedford Park, Bronx May 15, 2026. V1 Video by Síle Moloney

Speaking in Arabic, an employee of the deli located on the corner of Bainbridge Avenue and East 198th Street, spoke to Norwood News about the aftermath of the shooting. His friend translated. The young man said he did not witness the shooting, itself, and that the victim and his friend entered the deli afterwards.

 

He said he knew them to see as customers, and that the victim was holding his chest. He alleged the two sell weed on the block. “Suddenly, they came to the store and one of them is bleeding and the other one tried to help him take the blood from his body,” he said. “First, they came to the ground and he lay down and tried to take water to take the bleeding from his shirt.” Asked where he was bleeding, he said in the chest “in the right one.”

 

He continued, “The man who got shot came to the store first, and then he lay down on the ground, then his friend came to help and asked for a napkin from the owner.” Asked if the victim passed out, the deli employee said, “When he came to the store, he was ok, he was bleeding but he still walked a bit. When he go out to the ambulance, he was weak. He was not awake. He was not conscious.” He explained that the victim had sat down in one of the aisles in the back of the store.

 

Asked if anyone had been pressing down on the man’s chest wound before the emergency services arrived, he said, “Yeah, his friend had been pressing on his chest.” Asked if the two were nice people / good customers, the deli employee said, “They are normal, but I think when they sell weed, they have this representation of them, you know? Someone selling weed in the neighborhood, they [still? / inaudible] have problem with everyone.”

Asked if he ever had any direct problems with the two, the deli employee said he did not. Asked if he could describe them, his translator friend said, “The man who got shot, he cannot describe it well because he didn’t know him a lot but, you know, he saw him before, but his friend, he said he’s a little bit tall and he has a beard.” The deli worker described the victim and his friend as Hispanic and around 29/30.

 

Asked if he was scared, the deli employee said, through his friend, that he had been praying in the backroom of the deli when the two entered the store and that it had been his colleague who had been out front. He added that he believed the danger had passed at that point, as he understood the shooting had happened up the street, and he guessed they probably came to the store as they were regular customers there and needed napkins to stop the blood flow, and somewhere safe to call the ambulance. Asked if he had heard the gunshot(s), he said he didn’t.

 

The deli employee added that there were female customers in the deli when the two entered and that he brought them into the backroom (for their safety) and he and his colleague locked the front door of the store to keep everyone safe. Asked if he saw the perpetrators at any point, the employee said he did not.

Asked if he was nervous working in the area, the deli worker said he’s worked there for around two years and it’s the first time he’s experienced anything like a shooting. The deli worker’s friend who was translating said he, himself, used to live in the area but was just visiting on Friday night. “This neighborhood was super good, never faced anything here,” the translator friend said. “I was surprised when I saw the police here.”

 

We spoke to a few other residents of the area but they said they had just arrived and had not witnessed the shooting. Asked if, generally, they felt safe in the area, they said, for the most part they did, suggesting that they knew which areas of the neighborhood to avoid. One man said, “I’m never really here. I spend most of my time in the City.”

 

His friend recalled a prior fatal shooting of a 40-year-old man, covered by Norwood News at the time, on the corner of Briggs Avenue and East 198th Street in October 2024.

 

The latest crime statistics for the 52nd Precinct, where the incident occurred, are attached.