A teen suspect was taken into custody Thursday for the stray bullet slaying of a 69-year-old East Harlem woman using a walker, cops said.
Faisil McCants, 18, was nabbed in a joint effort by Homeland Security and the NYPD Violent Crimes Task Force on Thursday morning, a police source said.
Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News
NYPD detectives and Homeland Security agents escort Faisil McCants, 18, from the NYPD 23d Precinct station house in Manhattan on Thusday. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
McCants is being charged in federal court with armed robbery and possessing and using a machine gun, according to the federal complaint against him. He is being charged with murder, robbery and other charges in Manhattan Criminal Court.
“As alleged, after robbing a drug dealer at gunpoint, Faisil McCants fired a machine gun in the middle of the day on the busy streets of New York City, killing another person,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement. “The death of that wholly innocent bystander, a 69-year-old woman who was merely standing with her walker on the sidewalk in East Harlem, is as tragic as it is senseless. It is unacceptable.”
Robin Wright died after being struck in the head by a stray bullet near E. 110th St. and Madison Ave. about 12:25 p.m. Aug. 27, down the block from the apartment she shared with her grandson.
Law enforcement officers are still looking for at least one other person involved in the crime, sources said.
The day of the shooting, McCants and two currently unidentified people robbed a drug dealer selling marijuana while he was napping in a lawn chair in front of a deli at the corner of E. 109th St. and Madison Ave., federal authorities allege in the complaint against McCants.
After a brief scuffle, McCants and his companions grabbed the drug dealer’s marijuana-filled backpacks and ran north on Madison Ave. before turning east on 110th St., as the dealer chased after them. McCants, identified in the complaint as the “tallest of the individuals,” then pulled out a black gun from his right sweatshirt pocket, and sent a spray of bullets in the direction of the dealer, the complaint states.
One of the bullets struck Wright, according to the complaint. Authorities recovered 15 bullet-shell casing at the scene.
“Faisil McCants allegedly armed himself with a machine gun during a robbery and opened fire in broad daylight, killing a 69-year-old mother, grandmother and beloved East Harlem community member,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement. “Robin Wright was an innocent bystander who lost her life to gun violence — and today, justice was served in her memory.”
Wright and a friend were heading home with Chinese food and had just turned the corner onto E. 110th St. and were walking towards Madison Ave. when the friend, Junita Arnold, spotted three men in hoodies running across the avenue.
“I said [to Wright], ‘They looked like they got guns,’” Arnold told the Daily News afterwards. “I didn’t see the gun but I felt within myself, the way they were running.”
“I was right,” Arnold added. “Next thing, I heard six to seven gunshots and I’m standing there. I looked and my friend is down on the ground.”
Cops said two crooks robbed a man who chased them down and shot at them but did not hit anyone. The robbers then fired back and one of their bullets struck Wright, police said.
Arnold checked herself to see if she was shot and then turned to Wright, who was lying on the ground, blood pouring from her mouth.
“I said, ‘Oh, my God! Oh, you are all right, Miss Robin?’” she recalled. “And she said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Are you shot?’ She said, ‘Yes.’”
“And that was the only thing she said to me,” Arnold added. “I thank the Lord that I’m still here. But my friend is not here — and we were together side by side.”
Medics rushed Wright to Mount Sinai Hospital but she could not be saved.
Wright had returned home from a nursing home in July, around the time she celebrated her 69th birthday, Arnold said. She had only been using the walker for about a month, to help her regain feeling in the nerves of her right leg. Her doting grandson was staying with her while she recovered.
The gunshots were fired off at E. 110th St. near Park Ave., almost on the opposite end of the block from where Wright and Arnold were walking, Arnold said. “It’s a distance,” she said. “I don’t understand how the bullet hit her. All I know was that I was right next to her.”
“We didn’t expect for any of that to happen,” she added. “That [bullet] wasn’t for her. We were minding our business.”
Authorities arrested McCants, who was known to police from prior interactions in 2023, after observing him on surveillance camera before, during and after the crime, according to the federal complaint.
Analysis by an Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent of surveillance video and the 15 shell casings found at the scene determined that the firearm used was a machine gun, and that the trigger was pulled only once, the complaint states.
If convicted, McCants faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for the robbery, which involved interstate commerce, and at least 30 years in prison for possessing a machine gun.
Originally Published: September 4, 2025 at 3:39 PM EDT
