A professional basketball player was shot twice in the head and killed Friday night at a crowded outdoor tournament in Harlem, with two bystanders also struck by gunfire, and as of the latest police update, no one has been arrested.
Kinu Rochford, 35, a Crown Heights resident and former Fairleigh Dickinson University standout, was warming up for his next game at the Kingdome Basketball Tournament when gunfire erupted at approximately 10:30 p.m. Emergency responders administered CPR at the scene, then rushed Rochford to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The shooting happened at Martin Luther King Jr. Towers on Lenox Avenue, between West 112th and West 115th Streets, in front of an estimated 500 spectators. A 28-year-old man was shot in the shin and a 22-year-old woman was struck in the right forearm. Both were taken to Harlem Hospital in stable condition, the New York Post reported.
A police spokesman said the motive was not clear. No suspect has been identified or described publicly. No arrests have been made.
The Kingdome tournament had already been delayed a day, pushed from Thursday to Friday because of rain. A witness identified only as "Freak" told the Post it was the first day of the event, with roughly 500 people packed into seats to watch the games. The tournament court even featured a freshly painted mural of Walt Frazier passing the championship trophy to New York Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson.
What was supposed to be a neighborhood celebration ended with a man dead on the court.
"Freak," who said he had children running around the housing project, did not mince words:
"This s, t needs to stop. I got kids running around these projects. This is a day for the community and we're probably not gonna have this no more."
He added a line that ought to land hard in a city whose leaders have spent years debating the role of policing: "We need more police (on) patrol."
Jessica Montgommery, 45, a resident of the towers for a decade, was at the tournament when the shots rang out.
"It sounded like a firework. And then I heard it again and people started running."
Another witness, who gave only the name "Wavy," saw paramedics working on Rochford and told the Post what he observed:
"He was one of the players. He was just warming up for the next game. All I know is that young black man that came out here to play basketball and he is not going home tonight."
Rochford played power forward and center at Fairleigh Dickinson University from 2011 to 2013. He began his professional career in 2013, eventually playing overseas and winning the Lithuanian National Basketball League championship in 2017 with Garonne Sūduva-Mantinga. The FDU Knights posted condolences on Instagram, calling him "a standout Knight and leader" who "built a legacy in Hackensack."
Dave's Joint, a basketball-focused website, posted on X: "Our condolences go out to the family & friends of Kinu Rochford, a former standout at Globe Tech & at FDU in the early to mid 2010's. May he rest in power!"
Whether Rochford was still actively playing professional basketball at the time of his death is not stated in available reporting. What is clear is that he showed up to a community tournament to compete, and never left the court alive.
Witnesses told the Post that Rochford was struck a second time while he was already on the ground bleeding. Police have not confirmed that account. The shooter, or shooters, remain unidentified. The investigation, as far as public statements go, has produced nothing beyond a body, two wounded bystanders, and a vague assurance that the motive "wasn't clear."
The gaps in this case are wide. No one has been named as a suspect. No description of the gunman has been released publicly. Whether any security personnel or police were present at the tournament at the time of the shooting remains unanswered. Whether the tournament has been suspended or cancelled has not been addressed.
Five hundred people were watching. Someone saw something. The question is whether New York's criminal justice system will do anything with it.
For the people who live in and around Martin Luther King Jr. Towers, this is not an abstraction. It is Friday night. It is a basketball game. It is children in the crowd. And it is a man shot twice in the head while warming up to play.
The witness called "Freak" did not ask for a task force or a community dialogue. He asked for more police on patrol. That request, simple, practical, and rooted in the lived experience of someone raising kids in a housing project, cuts against years of activist-driven rhetoric that treats visible policing as the problem rather than the solution.
Rochford left Crown Heights to play ball in his own city. He had earned a college degree, built a professional career overseas, and came back to compete in the kind of neighborhood tournament that is supposed to be the best version of community life. He was 35.
When the people who live with the consequences of failed public safety beg for more cops, maybe it is time their leaders listened.
