Shooting shocks ‘quiet’ street

Hwang Yang, a 26-year-old Riverdale resident, was fatally shot on West 232nd Street just after midnight on April 19. He was on his way home from his job as a chef at The Modern restaurant in Manhattan, his family said.

Mr. Yang, who lived with his family at 3261 Johnson Ave., was walking up the hill from the No. 1 train at around 12:30 a.m., when police said a thief probably targeted him for his iPhone. They said a struggle ensued between Riverdale and Cambridge avenues and Mr. Yang was shot once in the chest. 

It was the 50th Precinct’s first alleged homicide this year and Riverdale’s first since May 2008.

A witness who lives on the block called 9-1-1 and when police responded, they found Mr. Yang unconscious. EMS brought him to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

As word spread through the South Riverdale neighborhood where Mr. Yang was killed, residents expressed shock, while witnesses shared their accounts of the tragedy.

“About 12:15, 12:30, there was a loud noise that sounded like a firecracker. I did not think to look,” said a nearby resident who witnessed the shooting’s aftermath. She said that when she heard the loud pop she assumed it was the sound of a firecracker, because kids who live nearby often set them off.

“A few seconds later, I heard footsteps — loudly — I peered out, noticed a man running up 232nd Street on the sidewalk cut over to the center of the street. When he bent down to pick someone up by the arm is when I noticed that it was a person. He put the person back down, casually strolled up to the top of 232nd, made a right on Cambridge, casually stepped into a vehicle. The vehicle casually drove away.”

The witness said that when the man approached Mr. Yang’s body, which was lying facedown in the street, he first lifted and then kicked the victim’s arm back down.

Then, the witness said, the man got into the passenger side of a vehicle that was double parked in front of the no-parking sign on Cambridge Avenue, to the right of the West 232nd Street intersection.