Man charged in fatal Yonkers shooting that followed dispute

A Yonkers man was harassing pedestrians on South Broadway before pistol-whipping and fatally shooting a man early Sunday, a prosecutor said Monday.

Carlos Ivan Villanueva, 31, was arraigned Monday afternoon in Yonkers City Court on charges of second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon in the death of Celestino Vasquez-Patricio.

The shooting occurred near 289 South Broadway just before 4 a.m. Police who were nearby and tried to render aid but Vasquez-Patricio, 25, was pronounced dead of a gunshot wound to the chest at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx a short time later.

Villanueva fled but was soon caught around the corner on Ludlow Street. He allegedly tossed the 9 mm Ruger pistol into a yard while he was running but it was recovered, police said.

At the arraignment, Assistant District Attorney Celia Curtis called the killing "utterly senseless" and said it was a culmination of Villanueva "antagonizing anyone who would look at him" on the stretch of South Broadway between Ludlow Street and Highland Avenue.

Two security guards at a sports bar there tried to calm Villanueva down but he confronted Patricio as he was going into the bar, Curtis said. Villanueva then pistol whipped Patricio twice in the face before stepping back and firing one shot into his chest, the prosecutor said.

Villanueva's Legal Aid lawyer did not request bail and City Judge Daniel Romano ordered him held at the Westchester County Jail.

It was the fourth fatal shooting in Yonkers in 2023 and second since mid-August when Mayor Mike Spano touted figures showing Yonkers had the state's biggest drop in shootings with injuries over the first seven months of the year.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Man charged in fatal Yonkers shooting that followed dispute