Brooklyn Subway Shooting:
Lamor Miller Whitehead, a Brooklyn pastor, claims he negotiated the surrender of suspected subway gunman Andrew Abdullah to ‘his mentor’ Mayor Eric Adams, but the strategy failed when city marshals ‘bum-rushed’ the suspect outside his lawyer’s office.
Abdullah, 25, was detained on Tuesday, May 24th, when he came to the Legal Aid Society’s Downtown office.
Abdullah is suspected of opening fire on Goldman Sachs researcher Daniel Enriquez, 44, as the train crossed the East River into Manhattan on Sunday, May 22nd.
Whitehead, who founded the Leaders of Tomorrow International Church in Canarsie, earlier stated that he was “sad” because the police violated Abdullah’s “integrity” by not allowing him to turn himself in directly to Mayor Adams.
The bishop’s role in Abdullah’s arrest and his friendship with Adams sparked debate over the clergyman’s criminal background, and his stated role in the arrest was flatly disputed by many engaged in the case.
Abdullah’s family, according to Whitehead, are his congregants with whom he has a tight bond that got more intimate following the loss of a teenage family member. Whitehead claims, “His Aunt was crying and they needed me to help them through the process. They didn’t know what to do. I told them first of all, he needs to surrender.”
He later added, “They spoke to him and said that they would call me back and then they called me and said, ‘We trust you, Bishop. He’s going to surrender.’ I asked them if they had an attorney and they said they were working with legal aid.”
Andrew Abdullah, the suspect in Daniel Enriquez’s shooting at the Canal Street train station, eluded police for 48 hours before being apprehended on Tuesday afternoon. The circumstances surrounding his arrest, which purportedly entailed a failed negotiation between the dubious bishop and his apparent friend the mayor, could not have been more bizarre.
Abdullah allegedly exited the Canal Street station after the shooting on a northbound Q train on Sunday, abandoning his weapon and removing his sweatshirt. He then proceeded to wander about Lower Manhattan, evading arrest by transit cops who stopped and questioned him before taking his name and sending him on his way.
Abdullah also made contact with his relatives at some time, who allegedly attempted to assist him. This is when Lamor Whitehead, according to him, entered the picture. Whitehead claimed to have a close relationship with Abdullah’s family, so much so that he attempted to mediate Abdullah’s surrender.
Abdullah was instead apprehended by city marshals outside of Legal Aid before he could surrender. According to Bloomberg, Legal Aid had been in talks with the police about Abdullah’s surrender and said that this was unacceptable.
Whitehead said, “The plan was, he was walking in with me and I was going to turn him over to the mayor. The mayor was going to be at the 5th Precinct because that’s what I set up with the mayor. I was against them going to the attorney’s office,” Whitehead said.
“They needed to come to the precinct to surrender but I left to go to the attorney’s office. I waited with the aunt and the grandmother and when I went to greet his mother, Abdullah got out of the car and the marshals bum-rushed.”
The Legal Aid Society confirmed Whitehead’s account of the arrest…..The Brooklyn Story
“Before Andrew Abdullah could voluntarily surrender himself to the local precinct, he was needlessly ambushed out front of our Manhattan trial office by City Marshals, denied of his opportunity to first consult with counsel,” lawyers declared in a press release.
However, according to The New York Post, in an interview, Legal Aid lawyer Kristin Bruan revealed that “As far as the pastor, he has no affiliation with the family. He has no affiliation with the legal team and the statements he has made claiming on behalf of the family are untrue.”
Whitehead is a former convict who was imprisoned for five years for several charges of identity theft and grand larceny before being released in 2013. He is thought to have had tight relations with mayor Eric Adams during his days as Brooklyn Borough President.
Authorities are also skeptical of Whitehead’s charitable activities since the preacher claimed in 2014 to have pushed a collaborative justice effort with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. Whitehead received a cease-and-desist letter from the DA’s office in November of that year.
Adams has been silent throughout the process. In a news conference on Tuesday, he added, “This is an active case in front of the DA, and I’m not going to say anything that’s going to impede the investigation at all.”
