The man who was executed in broad daylight on the Upper West Side over the weekend was brawling with his girlfriend and “threw her to the ground” right before he was killed, police sources said Monday.
Ronald Thomas, 27, of Virginia was in the city visiting his cousin when he was shot in the head while sitting in a white Mercedes-Benz GLA 250 around 12:15 p.m. Sunday near West 102nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan, cops said.
Thomas had just had a physical fight with his girlfriend and gotten back into his car when the shooter rolled up in another vehicle and fired a gun at him near the Frederick Douglass Houses — about a block from the NYPD’s 24th Precinct stationhouse.
A woman who was in the vehicle with the victim speaks to police. G.N.Miller/NYPost
Victim Ronald Thomas was sitting in a white Mercedes-Benz GLA 250 and arguing with a woman. G.N.Miller/NYPost
Ronald Thomas was a Virginia resident in the city visiting his cousin. G.N.Miller/NYPostThe woman told cops she had walked behind the vehicle when she heard multiple gunshots, the police source said.
“They all knew each other,” another police source said.
Photographs from the scene show the victim seated in his SUV with a sheet draped over his body and a distraught woman nearby. It wasn’t clear if the woman was the girlfriend.
Police investigate the shooting of Ronald Thomas. G.N.Miller/NYPost
The victim appeared to have been targeted. G.N.Miller/NYPost
The motive for the slaying wasn’t clear. G.N.Miller/NYPostThe violence happened amid the NYPD’s announcement that it would begin putting more cops on duty at night to help stem shootings ahead of the summer months.
