A summer night of neighborhood basketball in Harlem ended in gunfire, leaving one person dead and two others wounded. The shooting broke out at a basketball court and drew an NYPD response, turning what had been a community sporting event into the scene of a deadly attack in the middle of the city.
The violence unfolded at a well-known Harlem location. The shooting happened at the Kings Towers, where the gunfire erupted during an event tied to the Kingdome NYC street ball tournament, a fixture of the neighborhood's summer sporting calendar that draws players and spectators to the court.
The tournament itself is a long-running tradition in the city., Kingdome NYC is an annual street ball institution during the summer, with teams from around the city playing games on Fridays through Sundays, making it a regular gathering point for basketball fans across New York during the warmer months.
The timing placed the shooting at the height of the evening's action. The previous night had been the tournament's opening night, with four games on the schedule. The first game had started at 5:30, and the shooting took place during the final game of the evening, when a crowd would have been on hand to watch.
The attack proved fatal for one of those who was hit. The man who was killed was later identified as Kenu Rochford, 25, who was fatally shot on the sidelines during the tournament and rushed to Mount Sinai Morningside, where doctors were unable to save him. Organizers described the shooting as a devastating tragedy that claimed the only fatality in an incident that also left others injured.
Two more people were caught up in the shooting but survived. A 28-year-old man was struck in the leg and a 22-year-old woman was hit in the arm. Both were among the wounded taken for treatment, their injuries less severe than those suffered by the man who was killed.
For now, the motive and sequence of events remain under investigation. The exact circumstances of the shooting are still unclear, and the NYPD is working to piece together what led to the gunfire at the Kings Towers court during one of the summer's marquee street ball nights.
Rochford was a well-known figure in the city's basketball scene. He was a Brooklyn native who had been a standout at Fairleigh Dickinson University and went on to play professionally in nine countries across Europe, and was remembered by those who knew him as loud, boisterous and positive. On Saturday, dozens gathered at Wingate Park, near where he grew up playing, for a vigil, describing him as one of the top street ball players in New York City and mourning a loss felt across the wider basketball community, with tributes arriving from as far away as England, France, Portugal and Jamaica.
Days after the killing, Rochford's family stepped forward to demand justice. His mother, brother and sister spoke of losing one of three triplet siblings, now down by one, and of a bond they said could not be broken even by his years playing overseas. His brother Cairo, whose own playing days had been ended by an injury before he became Rochford's biggest supporter, was among those who described him as a positive presence in the community he came up in.
The family's grief was matched by a plea for accountability. Relatives said Rochford had gone to the tournament simply to support his teammates and should have come home, and they urged that the gunman who killed him and wounded two others be caught and brought to justice. They framed his death as a stark warning against the gun violence tearing through the streets, insisting his name be remembered and that he died needlessly.