‘Execution-style’ shooting of a Sikh man in New York

Indian American man sitting in borrowed SUV parked down the block from his Queens home fatally shot

New York Police are investigating the ‘execution style’ shooting of a 31-year-old Indian American man a few steps from his Queens home as he sat in an SUV borrowed from a friend, according to media reports.

Detectives are trying to determine if the gunman was aiming at Satnam Singh, who was behind the wheel of a black Jeep Wrangler Sahara or was hoping to kill the SUV’s owner and was unaware who was inside, New York Daily News reported citing police.

Read: Indian techie shot dead in Baltimore (June 23, 2022)

No arrests have been made. The SUV was parked near 129th St. and Sutter Ave. in South Ozone Park when a gunman approached and started blasting about 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, police said.

Medics rushed Singh, struck in the chest and neck, to Jamaica Hospital, where he died a short time later, police said. He lived just down the street from where he was shot.

Although police said the gunman approached Singh on foot, the News cited neighbors as saying the shots came from a silver-colored sedan with a black trunk as it passed the Jeep.

“[Singh] was walking up 129th St. going to the car and the other car with the perp in it came up,” neighbor Joan Cappellani was quoted as saying. “[It] made a U-turn, came back and then ‘Pow! Pow! Pow!’ and then went down 129th St.”

The shooting was caught on her home’s security cameras, which NYPD cops are reviewing, she said. “It was just another crazy day in South Ozone Park,” she said.

Singh had borrowed the Jeep from a friend a short time earlier, a police source said. He needed the Jeep to pick someone up.

Read: Sikh man shot dead ‘execution-style’ in New York’s South Ozone Park (June 27, 2022)

“He was very kind and quiet,” neighbor Christina Persaud was quoted as saying. “I said ‘Hi’ to him every day when I saw him. Maybe he was targeted, but I don’t know.”

Persaud, 49, was left rattled by the bloody shooting. “Why would someone do that?” she asked. “Right in the corner over here. This is a very nice area. I was shocked to hear this.”