Two seemingly isolated and random outdoor murders at the height of the holiday season and of the kind New Yorkers have increasingly feared since the pandemic began were blamed by police officials Monday on a city resident with a criminal record, the AP reports. James Essig, chief of detectives for the New York Police Department, underscored at a news conference how brief and unplanned were the encounters that Roland Codrington is accused of having with two men who were slashed to death three nights apart, resulting in two murder charges.
In the arrest announced Monday, Essig said the first killing Codrington was charged with occurred at 1am on Dec. 19, when 51-year-old James Cunningham, who had just left a bar after drinking a seltzer, was walking several blocks from Union Square when he was approached by Codrington, who was accompanied by his girlfriend. After a 20-second, caught-on-camera dispute, Codrington, 35, slashed Cunningham across the neck with a knife, leaving him to die, Essig said. At 11:30pm on Dec. 22, Codrington entered a Lower East Side bar with a pit bull and a baseball bat, Essig said. Codrington thought he had been disrespected by employees at the bar a week earlier. He assaulted the bartender and destroyed property, Essig said.
When two customers intervened, they were stabbed with a large knife, incurring non-life threatening wounds, Essig added. Afterward, Essig said, Codrington went home, then said he'd “cool off” with a walk through the park. There, he encountered Dr. Bruce Maurice Henry, 60, stabbing him repeatedly after a verbal exchange in which he became enraged, Essig said. The police official said Codrington left the area with his girlfriend in Henry's Mercedes Benz. Henry's body was found at 2:15am on Dec. 23. Essig credited three "sharp-eyed police officers" from upper Manhattan with spotting the car at 9:40pm on Dec. 24 and apprehending Codrington without resistance. Codrington, he said, has 12 prior arrests, including four assaults with weapons. Essig said police were investigating whether he's responsible for other random acts.
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