NYPD busts masked gunman in Union Square killing — domestic feud believed to be murder motive, say police sources
A black-clad gunman who killed a 25-year-old woman near Union Square was busted early Saturday, and police say he carried out the slaying in an ongoing domestic dispute.
Clarkson Wilson, 44, who served four years in prison on an attempted robbery conviction, shot Imani Armstrong in the head early Thursday as she neared the corner of E. 14th St. and Irving Place, just east of Union Square, sources said.
Armstrong, a Virginia native, was coming home from her job at a nearby IHOP when Wilson and a woman stormed up to her and opened fire at about 5 a.m., cops said.
Armstrong died at the scene.
Police sources said Armstrong had been targeted and was shot at close range. Investigators believe the shooting stemmed from a bitter squabble between Armstrong and Wilson, but it was not immediately disclosed how the two were linked to each other.
When the shooting started, the woman who was with Wilson had run off. Police initially believed she was an innocent bystander scrambling for cover, but later determined she was involved in the plan, police sources said.
A neighbor at Wilson’s Brownsville apartment building recalled seeing him with a frantic look on his face at about 6:30 a.m. Thursday, about an hour and a half after the shooting.
“I noticed when he was coming — it was him alone. He was looking behind him and I was like, ‘What the hell,’” said neighbor Joanne Brown, 55. “I was like, ‘This isn’t like the person I know,’ but I asked no questions.”
Cops charged Wilson with murder and two counts of weapons possession. His arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court was pending on Saturday evening.
The woman who was with Wilson at the time of the shooting remained at large Saturday.
Wilson has eight prior arrests, most recently for strangling someone in 2021, police sources said. The victim in that case was not Armstrong, the sources said.
In 2000 he was convicted of an attempted robbery and spent three years in prison before he was paroled. His parole ended in 2008, according to court papers.
Thursday’s incident was the second slaying in two days in the 13th Precinct, which until recent days hadn’t seen any homicides all year.
Around 12:50 a.m. Wednesday, a 38-year-old man got into an argument with his killer on Seventh Ave. near W. 28th St. in Chelsea.
As the two fought, the assailant pulled a knife and plunged it into the victim’s chest multiple times, cops said.
Medics rushed Jamal Burton, of East New York, Brooklyn, to Lenox Hill Hospital, where he died. The killer ran off and has not been caught.
