A man fatally shot in the head outside a Bronx homeless shelter as his girlfriend looked on in horror was an innocent bystander, law enforcement sources said Thursday.
The startling information was revealed as alleged gunman Iyahni McIntosh, 18, was arraigned in Bronx Criminal Court Thursday for the murder of 39-year-old Klint “Jason” French.
French was shot dead outside Fordham’s Sammon Build Center shelter on Grand Ave. near W. 190th St. about 6:50 p.m. Tuesday, just moments after he stepped outside the building where his girlfriend Katorah Davis lived.
Kerry Burke / New York Daily News
Shell casings are marked on the sidewalk after Jason French, 39, was fatally shot on Grand Ave. near W. 190th St. in the Bronx on Tuesday night. (Kerry Burke / New York Daily News)
According to the criminal complaint, McIntosh “shot multiple rounds from a .9mm handgun in the direction of Klint French, striking him in the head and causing his death.”
“Cops let me know they got the suspect and that he was an innocent bystander,” Davis, 37, told the Daily News Wednesday. “It’s just senseless. Senseless. (French) didn’t even know what he did to him.”
“I wish nothing but death upon him,” she said about McIntosh. “That’s how I feel.”
It wasn’t immediately clear who McIntosh was aiming at or why when French was fatally shot.
Davis said that her boyfriend lived in Brooklyn, and traveled to the Bronx just to pick her up. He didn’t know anyone in the area, she said.
“It was quick. Just like that,” Davis said, recalling the shooting. “He literally just walked out the door, and he was shot. He was a couple of feet away, and that could’ve been anybody.”
Davis was captured on cell phone video, crouching over French’s body, hysterically telling responding cops to stay away from him.
“Don’t touch him! Don’t touch him!” Davis pleaded with cops as they tried to inspect the body.
After firing at least seven shots from his .9mm handgun affixed with a high-capacity magazine, McIntosh fled the scene, prosecutors said at his arraignment. As he ran, the suspect ditched the firearm, which police later recovered. The pistol still had 12 rounds in the magazine, prosecutors said.
McIntosh was arrested near the scene a short time later, cops said. He is charged with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon for the killing.
McIntosh’s mother watched from the gallery in Bronx Criminal Court as her son pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail.
A witness to the shooting told The News that McIntosh had shot him at point-blank range and kept firing after French fell on the sidewalk.
“When he got close, he shot him twice,” said the witness, who declined to give her name. “When he fell down on the sidewalk, he shot him two more times in the head.”
A Legal Aid attorney for McIntosh declined to comment.
