SHOTS were fired at a NYC basketball tournament as a European star player was killed, two others were injured and a gunman is on the loose.
Kinu Rochford, a standout player at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, was fatally shot in a targeted murder on Friday night.
The 35-year-old was struck in the head at around 10.30pm at a packed Harlem basketball tournament, cops told The Post.
The shocking incident happened at the Kingdome Basketball Tournament in the Martin Luther King Jr. Towers on Lenox Avenue, police said.
Cops added that two others were wounded when gunfire erupted.
Rochford, who was playing in the tournament, was shot while watching between games, according to cops.
The shooting stemmed from a bitter squabble Rochford, of Brooklyn, was having with another man, a police source said.
The nature of the feud was not immediately known, the source added.
The Kingdom Games, which organised the tournament, called the shooting a “devastating tragedy.”
It said that “updates regarding the remainder of the 2026 Kingdom Games season will be shared when appropriate.”
Jessica Montgomery, who has lived in the towers for a decade, was at the tournament when she heard the terrifying gunshots.
She said: “It sounded like a firework,” the 45-year-old said. “And then I heard it again and people started running.”
Emergency responders desperately performed CPR on Rochford and rushed him to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, but the basketball star could not be saved, cops said.
The two injured victims were a 28-year-old man shot in the shin and a 22-year-old woman blasted in the right forearm.
They were among an estimated 500 people watching the tournament between West 112th Street and West 115th Street.
Both were taken to Harlem Hospital in stable condition.
A mural painted on the court just a day earlier showed Walt Frazier passing the NBA championship trophy to New York Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson.
Heartbroken mourners later arrived at Rochford’s Crown Heights apartment carrying bouquets of flowers, while a man leaving the building screamed: “Kinuuuu!”
A neighbour revealed Rochford was part of a set of triplets – two boys and a girl – and said his parents were from Trinidad.
The neighbour said he saw Rochford leaving the building’s laundry room on Thursday and noticed he had a slight limp.
He also remembered seeing Rochford’s father “years ago” watching his sons play basketball at a nearby park.
The FDU Knights paid tribute to the former power forward and centre, who played for the team from 2011 to 2013.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/sport/16675797/nyc-basketball-shooting-european-star-killed-gunman-loose/
