Jose Rivera, a 35-year-old Hispanic/Latino man, was killed on the night of September 4, 2020, in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. Close to the start of Labor Day weekend—when gun violence had been surging across the city—police were called to Faile Street, where a man had been shot outside a residential building.
At about 10 p.m., officers responding to the scene in front of 813 Faile Street found Rivera suffering from gunshot wounds to his torso and chest.
The street was still awake with late-summer movement, but the urgency of the moment narrowed everything to the flashing lights, the hurried voices, and the scramble to keep him alive. EMS transported him to Lincoln Hospital, and despite the effort to save him, he was pronounced dead.
In the immediate aftermath, investigators did not release a motive or a description of the shooter. Early reporting described the killing as potentially gang-related, but officials offered no public account of what sparked the gunfire or how the shooter approached and escaped.
As of the initial reports published the following day, authorities said no arrests had been made in Rivera’s killing, and detectives were still working the case.
