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1 injured in Times Square shooting, police searching for gunman
NEW YORK — A shooting in Times Square left at least one person injured Thursday.
Police are still searching for the alleged gunman. He is described as a Hispanic male between the ages of 15-20, last seen wearing a white t-shirt, white pants and sneakers.
CBS New York has learned that the incident started around 7 p.m. when three individuals allegedly began shoplifting at JD Sports at 42nd Street and Broadway.
Police say a security guard stopped two of the individuals at the front door, asked them for their receipt, took their shopping bag and questioned them.
One of the individuals then allegedly pulled out a gun and fired at the security guard, but missed and struck a 37-year-old female customer in the leg.
The victim was taken to a local hospital and is expected to survive.
Watch NYPD update
The two individuals then ran down to 47th Street and Seventh Avenue, where they were approached by two police officers. One individual was apprehended and taken to a local precinct for questioning.
The alleged gunman continued running down 47th Street toward Sixth Avenue, pursued by one officer. Police say the alleged gunman fired two shots at the officer while fleeing. The officer drew his weapon, but did not return fire due to the number of people in the area.
“Mid-block on 47th Street, there was a cut between the Fox buildings. As the perpetrator goes in there, he turns one time and fires at our officer. Our officer draws his weapon, but he cannot fire, too many people around. There’s too many people ducking. As the male in the white goes farther into the cut, under his armpit, he fires his second shot at our officer. Again, our officer does not return fire,” NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said.
Police say the alleged gunman then fled into a subway station at 46th Street and Sixth Avenue, and that video shows him running onto subway tracks before emerging from the subway system.
Watch Chopper 2 over Times Square
The alleged gunman has not yet been found. The NYPD says they have crews searching the area.
Police say the third individual who was allegedly involved in the shoplifting incident is unaccounted for.
The area around 42nd Street and Broadway, including the entrance to the subway, remained close off late Thursday night.
The NYPD had Sixth Avenue between 47th and 51st streets closed off for hours as counterterrorism officers and K-9s searched the area, but it has since reopened.
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Moscow — Former Royal Ballet star Sergei Polunin, famous for his tattoos of Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Wednesday announced that he plans to leave Russia. The Ukrainian-Russian dancer was one of the most prominent stars who backed Russia’s unilateral 2014 annexation of Crimea and its military assault on Ukraine. He was rewarded with prestigious state posts.
In a rambling, misspelled message on his Instagram account, Polunin wrote: “My time in Russia ran out a long time ago, it seems at this moment that I have fulfilled my mission here.”
The post first appeared Sunday on his little-read Telegram account.
Ian Gavan/Getty
Polunin, 35, did not give a specific reason for leaving but said that “a time comes when the soul feels it is not where it should be.”
He said he was leaving with his family — his wife Yelena and three children — but “where we will go is not clear so far.”
In the summer, the dancer complained of a lack of security and said he was being followed.
Polunin, who was born in Ukraine, backed Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea — a prelude to the ongoing, full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Putin launched in February 2022.
The dancer was granted Russian citizenship in 2019. He was appointed acting head of a dance academy in occupied Crimea’s biggest city, Sevastopol, and director of the city’s opera and ballet theatre, for which a large new building is under construction.
Just last year he was decorated by Putin for his role in popularizing dance. But in August he was replaced as head of the dance academy by former Bolshoi prima Maria Alexandrova, and a week ago, Russia’s arts minister Olga Lyubimova announced his theater director job would go to singer Ildar Abdrazakov.
This came after on December 9 Polunin published a social media post saying he was “very sorry for people” living in the heavily bombarded village near Ukraine’s city of Kherson, where his family originates from, and that “the worst deal would be better than war.”
Ian Gavan/Getty
Aged 13, Polunin won a scholarship to train at the Royal Ballet School in London and became its youngest ever principal dancer.
With his tattoos — including a large depiction of Putin’s face emblazoned prominently on his chest — and his rebellious attitude, he became known as the “bad boy of ballet” and caused a sensation by resigning from the Royal Ballet at the height of his fame in 2012.
Later he made a 2015 hit video to Irish musician Hozier’s song “Take Me to Church” and was the star of a 2016 documentary called “Dancer.”
He moved to perform at Moscow’s Stanislavsky Musical Theatre’s ballet before launching a solo career, starring in dance performances in roles including the mystic Grigory Rasputin.
In 2019 he posed for AFP with a large tattoo of Putin on his chest which he later supplemented with two Putin faces on either shoulder. He also has a large Ukrainian trident on his right hand.
This year he took part in Putin’s campaign for reelection as a celebrity backer.
