Muslim Man Going to Mosque Killed in NYC Rampage
The elderly man was a beloved father of six who was heading to his Queens mosque to pray when he was cruelly gunned down, his son told The Post on Sunday.
Cops charged alleged triggerman Thomas Abreu, 25, of Brooklyn, with one count of murder, two counts of attempted murder and six gun charges for allegedly shooting four people — including 86-year-old Homod Ali Saeidi — during his bloody rampage in Brooklyn and Queens on Saturday.
“My heart is broken, my family is all devastated,” Ahmed Alsaedi, Saeidi’s son, told The Post. “We can’t believe something like that would happen to an 86 year-old man. It’s terrible.”
Saeidi — the only victim to die of his wounds — ran three or four miles every morning without fail.
Then he went to the local park before heading to his mosque to pray, his son said.
That’s what he was doing Saturday morning when the crazed gunman rolled up behind him on a scooter, pulled a handgun and put a round through his back on the Jamaica Avenue sidewalk.
Police sources said Abreu employed a 9 mm “ghost gun” equipped with an extended magazine during his savage spree.
The scooter-borne madman casually drove though Brooklyn and Queens on the humid July weekend, randomly targeting people as they walked by.
By the time cops arrested him, he’d shot four people — including Saeidi, whose demise was caught on a chilling surveillance tape.
He apparently only had one prior arrest — a 2019 charge for possession of a forged instrument, according to the sources.
The heartbroken Alsaedi said his dad had come to America from Yemen in 1962 for a better life and fresh opportunities.
After he established himself, he brought the rest of his family over.
The father-of-six worked as a farmer, owned grocery stores and dabbled in real estate before he retired, his son said.
Family was everything to him — he was always there if his three daughters or three sons needed him, Alsaedi said.
“He’s a cheerful guy,” Alsaedi said. “He liked to joke a lot. He has a lot of friends.”
He was supposed to go back Yemen next week for a family trip, Alsaedi said.
Instead, his family will bury him in Spring Valley, New Jersey, following his funeral in Brooklyn on Monday afternoon.
“He loved the people. He liked to laugh, always,” said Yahya Alsaidi, 65, a relative of the slain man through marriage. “He was a great person. He would give to the poor, always give to the poor. “
Alsaedi also lamented that police couldn’t stop his dad’s unhinged killer even though he allegedly wound his way through two boroughs, firing off rounds as he went.
“The system right now, it needs to be reevaluated because crime in New York City is just unbelievable,” Alsaedi said.
“Every day it’s deteriorating. So hopefully the mayor, the commissioner or the governor will do something about it and try to get more power to police,” he continued. “Because right now crime is going up, up, up.”
Source: The New York Post
