Six weeks after Albert “Avrumie” Itzkowitz, a 75-year-old grandfather, was shot and killed along the Kissena Lake shoreline in Flushing’s Kissena Park, his family and local elected officials gathered at the park last Thursday to announce a combined $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, according to the Queens Ledger. No one has been charged.
NYPD officers from the 109th Precinct responded to a 911 call just before 5 p.m. on May 18 and found Itzkowitz dead with gunshot wounds to his neck and back. Police later estimated the shooting had taken place around 3 p.m., when as many as 200 people were likely in the park, according to the Queens Ledger.
At a press conference by the park’s entrance, Crime Stoppers announced an increased reward of $10,000 and the Itzkowitz family offered another $10,000, bringing the total to $20,000. State Senator John Liu, City Councilmember Sandra Ung, and state Assemblymembers David Weprin and Nily Rozic attended alongside the victim’s family and local Jewish community leaders.
“I know for a fact that there were so many people, during the daytime here at Kissena Park around the lake,” Liu said, according to the Queens Ledger. “Somebody must have seen and heard something.” He added: “There’s a killer at large, and that makes it dangerous for all of us and our families.”
Itzkowitz’s youngest son, Tzvi Yonie Itzkowitz, said it had been 38 days since his father was killed. “We are desperate for answers, and have found ourselves in emotional limbo over the past month,” he said, according to the Queens Ledger. His daughter, Leah Lifshitz, said her father had trusted the park. “Five weeks ago, my father was sitting in Kissena Park during a routine break, a place he knew and trusted and he was murdered in broad daylight,” Lifshitz said. Her father was visibly Jewish, alone, and killed in a public space where he should have been safe, the Queens Ledger reported.
Speakers at the press conference raised concerns that the killing may have been motivated by antisemitism, noting that Itzkowitz was a visibly Jewish man killed in a public park during a period of elevated antisemitic incidents across New York City, according to the Queens Ledger. No law enforcement agency has publicly confirmed antisemitism as a determined motive. Itzkowitz was a kosher supervisor and a volunteer EMT, and was described as a beloved figure in his Queens community.
Tzvi Yonie Itzkowitz said his family has seen “the dedication, sensitivity, and tireless effort of the NYPD and the district attorney’s office” over the past weeks, and asked the public to come forward with whatever they saw or heard that afternoon at the park.
