Village Shootout Leaves 4 Dead

Police are trying to figure out what led a gunman to go on a violent rampage in Greenwich Village last night, slaying a pizza shop worker and two auxiliary police officers before being shot himself. WNYC’s Fred Mogul has more.

REPORTER: Police say 35-year-old David Gavin entered DeMarco’s Pizza on Macdougal Street around 9:20pm and, after being handed a menu, fired about 15 shots into the back of worker Alfredo Romero. He fled the scene, but a block away encountered 2 auxiliary officers whom he also shot. At a 2:30am press conference, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg said don't yet have a theory for what motivated Gavin.

BLOOMBERG: None whatsoever. I’d say it’s inexplicable.

REPORTER: The auxiliary officers killed are 19-year-old NYU student Eugene Marshalik and 28-year-old Nicholas Todd Pekearo, a writer from Long Island. They’re among the city’s 4500 auxiliaries - volunteers who wear uniforms, but don’t carry weapons or bullet-proof vests. Seven of them have been killed in the history of the NYPD, the most recent in 1993. For WNYC, I’m Fred Mogul.