On Aug. 12, 2021, Anthony Ali, a 24-year-old man from Queens, New York, set out for a short drive that never brought him back home; he was described as a U.S.-based Guyanese who worked as a jewelry store clerk and had a knack for fashion and cars.
Late that night in Richmond Hill, he was behind the wheel of a blue BMW when a crash at the corner of 89th Avenue and 116th Street turned tense almost immediately.
Investigators said the collision pulled both drivers into a heated confrontation on a residential block where people weren’t used to seeing the kind of violence that would follow.
The argument escalated into gunfire. Police said the other driver produced a handgun and fired into Ali’s car, hitting him in the head and chest; another account said he was shot in the face and chest as he tried to pull away. The chaos spilled down the one-way stretch of 116th Street: footage referenced in reporting described the cars moving side by side, striking parked vehicles, and ending with Ali’s BMW crashing into a pole while a man ran from the scene. A passenger inside Ali’s car was not injured.
In the minutes after the shots, the gunman vanished into the night. Police described the fleeing vehicle as a black Infiniti sedan—reported as a 2008–2010 model with temporary Florida license plates—and noted it may have had front-end damage from the crash. In the initial public reporting, investigators said they were still searching for the shooter and that no arrests had been announced.
For Ali’s family, the final moments were haunted by their last ordinary conversation with him. His mother said she’d spoken to him just minutes before, when he told her he was on his way home to walk his new puppy; then the phone stopped ringing with answers, and instead the calls brought the unthinkable. His father and relatives described a young man focused on work and the things he loved—jewelry, style, and the car he’d only recently bought—while the investigation centered on a road-rage confrontation that ended in a killing and a suspect who slipped away without a name in the headlines.
