A gunman opened fire multiple times outside a commercial building on College Point Boulevard in the early morning hours of Monday, August 17, blasting out the front door and windows before fleeing on foot. No injuries were reported, but the property damage and the sound of repeated gunfire in the middle of the night have put the NYPD's 109th Precinct back on the hunt for a shooter in a neighborhood that has already seen its share of violence this year.
According to NYPD Crime Stoppers, the unidentified suspect displayed and discharged a firearm in front of 42-32 College Point Boulevard at around 3:31 a.m., damaging the storefront's door and windows before running off to the south on College Point Boulevard. That address sits inside a two-story retail building put up in 1987, located within Queens Community District 7 and City Council District 20, according to StreetEasy. The block is roughly half a mile from the Flushing-Main Street transit hub, which connects to the 7 subway line and the Long Island Rail Road — a dense web of potential escape routes for anyone slipping away on foot late at night, per Apartment Finder.
Investigators Lean on Camera Network to Track Suspect
The case falls under the jurisdiction of the NYPD's 109th Precinct, headquartered at 37-05 Union Street in Flushing and responsible for policing a stretch of northeast Queens that includes Downtown Flushing, East Flushing, Queensboro Hill, College Point, Malba, Whitestone, Beechhurst, and Bay Terrace, per the NYPD. Detectives working the shooting may be able to tap into a real-time surveillance system the department piloted in the precinct back in June 2023, when the NYPD partnered with technology firm Fusus to let commercial businesses share live camera feeds directly with police, according to Wikipedia. Whether footage from that network or nearby storefronts captured a clear image of the suspect fleeing southbound remains an open question.
It is also unclear whether the gunfire was aimed at the business itself or fired indiscriminately, a distinction that could matter significantly if the case moves toward prosecution. Depending on how investigators characterize the danger posed to anyone who might have been inside or near the storefront, the suspect could eventually face reckless endangerment charges ranging from a misdemeanor to a felony.
What Reckless Endangerment Charges Could Look Like
Under New York Penal Law § 120.20, Reckless Endangerment in the Second Degree is a Class A misdemeanor carrying up to a year in prison for conduct that creates a substantial risk of serious physical injury, according to New York Criminal Defense Lawyer. But if prosecutors determine the gunfire showed a depraved indifference to human life and created a grave risk of death, the charge could be elevated to Reckless Endangerment in the First Degree, a Class D felony punishable by up to seven years in prison under New York Penal Law § 120.25, per FindLaw. No charges have been filed, since the suspect has not yet been identified or arrested.
This is not the first violent incident the 109th Precinct has investigated in College Point this year. On July 23, an early-morning dispute at 126th Street and 26th Avenue left a 47-year-old man hospitalized with multiple meat cleaver wounds, a case previously reported by Hoodline. And in July 2025, precinct officers investigated a fatal shooting at 28-02 119th Street after a 50-year-old man was killed by multiple gunshots, according to a report from UNF News on Facebook.
Borough-Wide Numbers Show a Different Trend
The College Point shooting comes even as shooting incidents across Queens have generally been trending downward. Annual reporting from the Queens District Attorney's Office found that shooting incidents in the borough fell by 10% and shooting victims dropped by 11% year-over-year through late December 2024. Even so, localized gunfire near a busy commercial corridor like College Point Boulevard underscores how a single incident can rattle a neighborhood regardless of broader statistical trends.
NYPD Crime Stoppers is asking anyone with information to call 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), with a Spanish-language hotline available at 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). Tips can also be submitted through the Crime Stoppers website or sent directly via X to @NYPDTips, and all submissions are anonymous. The agency is offering a reward of up to $3,500 for information leading to an arrest and indictment in the case.
