In the pre-dawn hours of a cold Sunday in December, the courtyard of the Armstrong Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, became a crime scene. It was there, on December 13, 2015, that 27-year-old Alfred James was found with multiple gunshot wounds. The shooting occurred shortly before 12:30 a.m., shattering the nighttime quiet of the public housing complex on Lexington Avenue.
Responding emergency services found James in a grave state, having been shot several times in his torso.
He was rushed to Woodhull Hospital, but his injuries proved to be too severe, and he was pronounced dead. From the outset, investigators were confronted with a scene that suggested a robbery gone horribly wrong. James was discovered with his pockets turned inside out and his pants pulled down around his ankles, pointing towards a likely, and brutal, motive. He had sustained five gunshot wounds, with four to his back and one to his side.
A resident of Williamsburg, Alfred James's life was cut short in an act of violence that left family and friends seeking answers. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the New York Police Department commenced a thorough investigation, appealing to the public for any information that might lead to the apprehension of those responsible. Despite their efforts and the distressing circumstances of James's death, no arrests were made in the days and weeks that followed.
In the years since Alfred James was killed, there have been no publicly available reports of any arrests or the identification of any suspects in his murder. The case, which sent ripples of fear and sorrow through the community, appears to have gone cold. A street memorial was created in his honor in January of the following year, a somber testament to a life taken too soon and a case that remains without closure. The investigation into his death is technically still open, but without new leads, the path to justice for Alfred James remains unclear.
