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Gunman Killed By Police Outside Cathedral Had History Of Violence, Prison, And Isolation
By
Sydney Pereira
Published Dec 15, 2020
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Gothamist/C.S. Muncy
By
Sydney Pereira
Published Dec 15, 2020
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The man killed by police after firing a gun into the air outside the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights on Sunday had spent time in prison in the 1990s following various arrests, including one for attempted murder, according to police and prosecutors.
The gunman, identified by policed as Luis Manuel Vasquez Gomez, was a 52-year-old man living in the Bronx who had a history of arrests decades ago in his 20s that landed him in prison.
Those prison stints, his sister told the NY Times, had worsened her brother's mental health state, which had intensified during the isolation of the pandemic.
In August 1989, he was arrested for second degree assault for cutting someone's hand with a knife, according to the Manhattan District Attorney's office. He later pleaded guilty for a first degree harassment charge.
In October 1989, he was arrested for selling drugs to an undercover officer just blocks south of the cathedral, according to police. He was convicted and sentenced to up to three years in prison for the charge, the DA's office said.
Before he was convicted, he was arrested in August 1990 for firing a gun at a woman and towards police, according to the police department and DA's office. He later pleaded guilty to a weapons possession charge the same day he was convicted of the drug charge.
But his sister, Maria Vasquez-Montalvo, told the NY Times about her brother: "After he came out of jail, he was not the same."
While in prison, he lost hearing and suffered a broken nose after guards beat him, and also spent months in solitary confinement, his sister told the newspaper.
The state corrections department did not immediately respond to questions.
According to the Times, Vasquez immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic as a child, and, following his prison time, state authorities turned him over to immigration authorities in 1994 and 2007.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately provide any information regarding Vasquez.
Vasquez opened fire outside the cathedral shortly after an open-air holiday carols concert had wrapped up before 4 p.m.
As people were mingling and dispersing after the concert, he fired a gun multiple times and yelled out "shoot me" and "kill me," according to police and concertgoers on the scene.
Video released by police shows him appearing to fire a gun into the air before people standing on the steps flee. Graphic cell phone video obtained by the NY Daily News shows officers hiding behind trash cans shooting at Vasquez as he screamed at police to end his life.
Three officers on the scene fired 15 shots towards him, striking him in the head and sending him to a nearby hospital where he later died, according to police officials. Body camera footage could be released within a month under a policy instituted this summer.
No one else was shot, police said. EMS said one other person was taken to a hospital that afternoon at West 112th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
Police recovered two guns and a bag with gasoline, rope, wire, multiple knives, and tape from the scene, which Police Commissioner Dermot Shea say belonged to Vasquez.
The shooting shook the cathedral's community, which had held the holiday caroling concert outdoors on the steps for a pandemic-era Christmas event.
"It is horrible that our choir’s gift to New York City, a much-needed afternoon of song and unity, was cut short by this shocking act of violence," the cathedral said on Facebook. "We are grateful to our first responders, and our prayers are with all those affected by this event."
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