A Muslim imam was killed and a second man was critically wounded on Saturday while walking home from afternoon prayers at a mosque in the New York City borough of Queens, according to media reports that cited witnesses to the shooting.
Tiffany Phillips, a spokeswoman for the New York Police Department, confirmed that two men in their 50’s were shot on a street in the Ozone Park section of Queens.
One of them was killed and the second was gravely wounded, but Phillips declined to provide any more information about their identities.
Police have yet to identify a suspect and the motive was still unknown, she said.
The shooting took place at about 2 p.m. EDT (02:00 p.m. EDT) two blocks from the Al-Furqan Jame Masjid Mosque, where the two men had worshiped, New York’s NBC television reported. The iman was killed and the second man was wounded, it said on its website.