Police security footage has captured the moment a filmmaker in Long Island City was shot and killed in his car on the evening of August 19 by an unidentified man.
The video shows the shooter walking in front of a garage while talking on the phone before making his way towards a Mercedes Benz with his hand in his pocket.
Joseph ‘Taheim’ Bryan, 50, was parked in the vehicle on Jackson Avenue at around 11.20pm before the man shot him four times in the arm and torso as he killed him in the front seat of his car.
The shooter- who remains unidentified- was captured on the evening of August 19 pacing in front of a garage while on the phone
A witness told DailyMail.com: ‘I heard a burst of gunfire at around 11 pm, very rapid and close by. I looked out my window and saw a car parked in the middle of the dead-end street to the side of my building.
‘The building security came out and noticed something was wrong, and police were there very quickly. A helicopter, I think, spotted the car.’
The footage then showed a dark-colored Mazda leaving the scene from Queens Boulevard after the incident occurred.
The shooter was said to have gotten into the vehicle with a getaway driver at the ready, said police according to The New York Post.
The shooter approached the Mercedes-Benz that Bryan was parked in as he reached into his pocket
The man then shot Bryan four times in the arm and torso while he was sitting in the front seat of his car
The shooter got in a getaway car which was identified as a dark-colored Mazda that was parked on Queens Boulevard after the incident occurred
He was seen in the video wearing black track pants, a white sweatshirt, as well as a hat and mask.
Bryan was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead, according to authorities.
‘Officers had to smash their way into the vehicle and they pulled the guy out and tried to resuscitate him until the ambulance arrived,’ a witness told DailyMail.com.
Rapper Ice-T, 63, took to Twitter on August 20 saying: ‘MFs killed my friend last night. I’m not in a good place behind this. Taheim was a GOOD dude making positive moves.’
Bryan was a friend of Ice-T who wrote and produced an action movie called ‘Equal Standard’ starring the rapper.
‘He wrote & we made the film Equal Standard together. He leaves a wife & daughter. Dirty MFs followed him home and murdered him.’
Rapper Ice-T (right) took to Twitter on August 20 to grieve the loss of his friend
Ice-T (left) and Joseph ‘Taheim’ Bryan (left center) were friends and collaborators on 2020 action film Equal Standard
Gilbert Cantres, a lifelong friend of Bryan and former husband of his sister, told The New York Post: ‘It’s the why that’s killing the whole family. He didn’t have any enemies out there, not from what I know.’
The NYPD’s CrimeStat report for Long Island City shows a neighborhood where safety has improved over the last 30 years. In 1990, there were 16 murders in Long Island City alone; three years later, that number dropped to 10.
By 1998, the NYPD reported five murders in the neighborhood during that one-year period, dropping again to three in 2001. Only two homicides were reported last year.
Meanwhile, murders in the Queens neighborhood dropped 87.5 percent from 1990 to 2020.
The once-industrial and manufacturing epicenter of the city has blossomed into a sought-after neighborhood in New York City, with major changes between 2016 and 2017.
A 2017 report by SpareRoom found that Long Island City became the most expensive neighborhood that year, beating out 19 other neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Just three months prior in the fourth quarter of 2016, it ranked 11th out of the 20 most expensive neighborhoods in New York.
While average rent costs in the neighborhood have leveled out, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Long Island City, NY is currently $2,939, according to Apartments.com.
The neighborhood made headlines back in early 2019 after Amazon canceled plans to move its second national headquarters to Long Island City.
A witness told DailyMail.com that police smashed open the window of Bryan’s vehicle to get him out
Bryan was rushed from the scene by an ambulance and was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital