A subway rider was fatally shot in a shocking unprovoked, midday attack on a Manhattan-bound train Sunday.
Daniel Enriquez, 48, was sitting in the last car of a Manhattan-bound Q train as it approached the Canal St. station when he was hit about 11:45 a.m., police said.
“To be shot in the chest and to die alone, this is everybody’s worst nightmare,” his grief-stricken sister Griselda Vile, 43, told the Daily News.
“According to witnesses, the suspect was walking back and forth in the same train car,” NYPD Chief of Department Kenneth Corey said. “And without provocation, pulled out a gun and fired it at the victim at close range as the train was crossing the Manhattan Bridge.”
The suspect got off the train at the Canal St. station and ran, Corey said.
“This is really still early in the investigation — what we’ve gotten from the witnesses, there is no prior contact between the victim and the suspect,” Corey said.
Medics rushed Enriquez to Bellevue Hospital, where he died about 30 minutes later.
“This guy just shot him… in a city that he loved, in a city that’s in shambles right now,” Vile lamented.
Enriquez, a graduate of New York University, worked for Goldman Sachs and donated countless hours of his time to artists in need, Vile told The News.
“I want people to know that he was one of the smartest people I know, he would try so hard to be in his family’s lives,” Vile said. “He was jovial, generous. He doesn’t do anything bad. He’s a good person.”
Train operator Luis Irizarry, 40, recounted the terrifying moment gunfire erupted in the car, Transport Workers Union Local 100 said.
As he walked to the back of the car, he spotted Enriquez’s lifeless body.
“Nobody was helping him, so I got down and pushed down on his chest, giving chest compressions,” Irizarry recounted to the union. “I’m not a trained EMT but I was trying to help this man. I was trying to do chest compressions but to no avail. I saw the police coming and I waved them down.”
Conductor Walstein Chapman was alerted by panicked straphangers, the union reported.
“We did what we had to do,” Chapman said, according to the union. “My heart is still racing but I had to do what I had to do.”
In a statement, TWU Local 100 president Tony Utano praised the men.
“The Train Operator and Conductor are rattled and traumatized by today’s violence, but they handled the incident and the aftermath calmly and professionally,” Utano said. “They deserve the city’s thanks and praise. We’re very proud of them.”
Cops are still looking for the shooter, who Corey described as a dark-skinned heavyset man with a beard wearing a dark-colored hoodie, gray sweatpants and white sneakers. Cops are reviewing MTA security video from the station.
“Help us find this guy,” Corey implored. “There’s other people riding the train, we have some of them. Others who saw something, maybe someone who took a photo or some video on their cell phone, please share it with us.”
“I just hope they catch him,” Vile said. “I hope that they really do justice for killing a New Yorker, because if they don’t do something everybody will be afraid of riding the subway.”
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.
The shooting comes about 51/2 weeks after a gunman set off a smoke canister and sprayed 33 bullets into a crowded Manhattan-bound N train as it approached the 36th St. station in Brooklyn on April 12. Ten people were shot and wounded, and 13 others were otherwise hurt.
The accused shooter, Frank James, faces federal terrorism charges.
Shootings on the subway had been rare in recent years. Through May 15, 14 people were shot in the transit system citywide, including James’ 10 victims. By the same point last year, no one had been shot in the transit system.
With Nicholas Williams
