A 61-year-old bystander, shot when an NYPD undercover gun buy in Mount Vernon went horribly wrong, died of his wounds Saturday.
Felix Kumi was a deeply spiritual man who “touched everyone he met,” heartbroken family members said.
The devout Jehovah’s Witness was walking to pick up his car from a repair shop when he was hit twice by police bullets on Beekman Ave. Friday afternoon.
“My father died a faithful man,” his heartbroken daughter Rachel Kumi, 25, said, fighting back tears in front of her dad’s home. “It’s a travesty that this happened. He loved us and he touched everyone he met.”
Kumi was hit twice in the midsection as an undercover cop with the NYPD’s Firearms Investigations Unit fired between 11 and 21 shots at 37-year-old Alvin Smothers, the man who set off the fateful chain of events by aiming a pistol to the cop’s head. Smothers was hit three times.
“Mr. Kumi was blameless, and this tragedy has tested and tried his family,” NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said in a statement Saturday. “I pray that they may find comfort in their hope of resurrection and awakening.”
The NYPD’s Community Affairs Unit has been in contact with Kumi’s family, a police source said.
Smothers, whose gun turned out to be a fake, had just robbed the cop of $2,400 the officer was planning to use to buy two firearms from seller Jeffrey Aristy, 28, sources said.
In 10 previous encounters, the cop had bought 25 guns from Aristy, as well as some drugs. Their meetings continued, as the officer tried to identify Aristy’s supplier, a source said.
Aristy was arraigned early Sunday morning, along with his wife, Ivett Cruz, 29, and another man, Samuel Ruiz, 24.
Aristy was hit with a litany of gun and drug charges, while his wife, described as a go-between on a drug sale involving the undercover faces drug charges.
Prosecutors say Ruiz helped arrange gun sales between Aristy and the officer. Both men were held without bail, while Aristy’s wife was held on $10,000 bail.
This time, when the cop, a 10-year veteran of the NYPD, picked up Aristy in the Bronx, the gun broker said he wanted to go to Mount Vernon, two miles north of Manhattan, to meet up with Ruiz, whom he described as his “cousin,” police sources said.
They parked the car on Beekman Ave. and met briefly with Ruiz, but a few moments later, Smothers jumped in the back seat and put what appeared to be a pistol to the back of the cop’s head.
The officer handed over the cash and then pulled his own gun. Smothers tried to dash off, but the officer gave chase. When Smothers again pointed the pistol at him, the undercover opened fire, sources said.
Two stray slugs struck Kumi, who was walking nearby, police sources said. He died at Jacobi Medical Center about 12:55 a.m. Saturday, officials said.
Kumi attended services five days a week at Mount Vernon’s Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, his landlord Kenneth Dwyer said. He also drove a bus for Mount Vernon public schools for more than a decade but was having trouble making ends meet, the landlord said.
Smothers remained at Jacobi Medical Center in critical condition Saturday. In a somewhat prophetic Facebook post earlier Friday, Smothers wrote, “It’s not worth jail time” — an apparent attempt to talk himself out of committing the crime.
Cops recovered both the imitation pistol and the stolen money.
Aristy, who a relative says was also shot, slipped away, but was nabbed outside his home on Nelson Ave.in the Bronx. He was charged with several counts of criminal sale of a firearm and sale of a controlled substance.
The Westchester district attorney is investigating the shooting, while the state Attorney General’s office, which now heads the investigations of police-involved killings, hadn’t yet decided if it will take the case, sources said.
As is standard, the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau was reviewing the tactics the cop and his supervisors used, including the decision by the undercover to break cover and take law enforcement action, a source familiar with the case said.
Kumi’s daughter said her family is waiting for more information on how exactly her father wound up shot.
“We don’t know much about the situation so we don’t want to speculate,” Rachel Kumi said.
“It’s just a wakeup call for everybody to love your family – because you never know when they are not going to be here.”
With Keldy Ortiz, Rocco Parascandola
