Worker shoots ex-boss on UWS street — before hiding under train during daring escape through subway tunnels
A fired worker at a computer repair store shot his former boss in a broad daylight attack on the Upper West Side Thursday – then escaped through subway tunnels and briefly hid under a train, according to sources and local store owners.
The irate shooter blasted the 47-year-old victim once in the shoulder and once in the leg at West 69th Street and Columbus Avenue around 9:20 a.m., police said.
The two worked together at the nearby Lincoln Business Machines Incorporated, sources said — and the gunman was a remote worker who had been fired shortly before the shooting, several local store owners told The Post.
The victim was taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition.
Meanwhile, the shooter fled into the 72nd Street train station, where he crept under an A train in the tunnel – and somehow managed to continue his escape bid, sources said.
The runaway gunman — who was still on the loose Wednesday afternoon — wreaked havoc on some straphangers' commutes.
Passengers on one train were asked to lie on the subway floor and then evacuate as cops searched for the shooter, according to video obtained by The New York Times .
One rider snapped shots of people curled up on the ground, and walking through the darkened tunnel.
"My super pleasant subway ride to work this morning!!" she posted on X . "Love the C train!!! Nothing like an active gunman on the train to wake you up for the day!"
The still-at-large suspect is a man in his 40s last seen wearing a black hoodie, green jacket, tan pants and carrying a black firearm, authorities said.
A manager at the computer business declined to comment.
A woman who lives above the computer shop said she watched as tensions boiled over between the shooter – who apparently worked remotely – and his employer.
"They started arguing inside the store and then right out here, yes, in front of the store. And then all the way down to the corner," she said.
"He was working remotely, doing some service for the computer company," the neighbor said. "There apparently was some kind of a problem over money. I can't remember exactly what he was screaming but it was something about money and something about being cheated or wronged ... It was terrifying.
"It was all about the situation with work and he came down here. Oh my God, I can't believe this."
Birgilio Rojas, 56, who owns Traviata Pizza next door, said he saw the victim regularly for "many, many years."
"Sometimes I need a copy or something made and he gives it to me and he comes here for the slices," Rojas said. "[He's] a nice guy, you know, he's part of the neighborhood."
Maya Shatsky, 25, who lives around the corner from the shooting scene, said she was getting ready for work when she heard the shots ring out.
She heard sirens blaring about five minutes later – and then stepped outside with her roommate, where they comforted an Uber Eats driver left shaken by the violence, she said.
"He was there during the event, and so we were talking to him and consoling him," she said. "He was having a really hard time and just in shock. Everyone was in shock.
"[The driver] was going into the coffee shop that was across the street from where the [shooter] was – the coffee shop that's right in front of the bus stop," she added. "And first he heard the gunshots, and he looked across the street, because he thought [something happened] across the street. And then he saw that the man started shooting through the street towards the bus stop."
Shatsky said she and her roommate – who both grew up on the "family-oriented Upper West Side" – are troubled by the unexpected violence.
"We're just shocked," she said. "Like something like that doesn't just happen outside of our doorstop, maybe in like Times Square, somewhere like that. But not at 69th and Columbus at 9:30, 9 a.m."
"We feel generally very safe, still," Shatsky acknowledged. "We love the Upper West Side, and I don't actually know how that happened and what happened outside there. We were just shocked."
