Evening Roundup: Midtown Shooting Victim Was NYPD Officer on Paid Detail, Cell Phone Restrictions in Schools, Older Residents Struggle in NYC and Polling New...

Janae Pierre: One of the Midtown shooting victims was an NYPD officer on paid detail. Cell phone restrictions in schools, older residents struggle in New York City, and polling New Jersey's governor's race. From WNYC, This is NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. We're learning more about the victims of the mass shooting in Midtown Manhattan Monday that killed four people. One of them was building security guard, Aland Etienne. Investment firm Blackstone also says one of its executives, Wesley LePatner, was also killed in the shooting. Late Monday, Commissioner Jessica Tisch identified Didarul Islam as the police officer who died in the attack.

Commissioner Jessica Tisch: He put himself in harm's way. He made the ultimate sacrifice. Shot in cold blood, wearing a uniform that stood for the promise that he made to this city.

Janae Pierre: Islam was on a paid detail, wearing his NYPD uniform, but getting paid by a private company as a contractor. WNYC's Ben Feuerherd has been looking into this practice. He found that these side gigs have traditionally been thought of as plum assignments, but as threats to corporate America increase, that could be changing. All right, so, Ben, what does it mean when an officer works a paid detail?

Ben Feuerherd: It's a program the NYPD launched in the 1990s to increase uniformed police presence at certain locations. Something like a Yankee game, for example, will have officers working these details. They're technically off duty, but they're working in uniform as a security guard. Other locations that have these details include things like houses of worship in the city and midtown office buildings. The officers who work these details get paid by the private company that hires them, not the NYPD for the time they put in.

Janae Pierre: What do officers say about these assignments?

Ben Feuerherd: Actually, we looked back at depositions from a civil suit that were taken in 2022 and 2023. These depositions included interviews with a number of officers who were assigned to Bloomberg's headquarters on Lexington Avenue, which is just blocks away from where the shooting happened on Monday. The officers in these depositions described pretty mundane security tasks that you might expect at a Midtown office building. Things like shooing away skateboarders, getting hot dog vendors off the block, and making sure homeless people don't come into the building.

Janae Pierre: Ben, I'm wondering, what have the people you spoke to said about an officer being killed on a paid detail assignment? Is that something that happens often?

Ben Feuerherd: Actually, I spoke to a former FBI agent who helped lead the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, and he made the point that this shooting showed how vulnerable office buildings are to an attacker armed with a rifle. He also made the point that this comes after the United Healthcare CEO was assassinated in Midtown, and he said said further attacks similar to what happened on Monday could certainly spring up similar to the way the country experienced several series of school shootings after Columbine. This is a situation where it demonstrates that it's possible and it's likely going to initiate copycat attacks.

Janae Pierre: You're saying a shooting like this could inspire something like this to happen in the future?

Ben Feuerherd: Yes. He also made the point that the political climate in the country right now could certainly add to that.

Janae Pierre: As I mentioned earlier, Didarul Islam was the first person to be killed during Monday evening's shooting in Midtown. What can you tell us about him?

Ben Feuerherd: Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch spoke briefly about him at the hospital. She said he was a immigrant from Bangladesh. He served for three and a half years in the department, worked at a precinct in the Bronx, the 47 precinct. He's a father of two children and his wife is currently pregnant with their third child.

Janae Pierre: Wow. That's WNYC's Ben Feuerhard. For more of our coverage on the Midtown shooting, visit our news site Gothamist. Stick around. More local news headlines after the break.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul is planning to implement bell-to-bell cell phone restrictions in schools this fall. The Distraction-Free Schools law will prohibit the use of smartphones and other Internet-enabled personal devices during the school day. More than half of the school districts throughout the state are complying with the plan. Districts who have not have until Friday to do so. Governor Hochul says school-age children are suffering.

Governor Kathy Hochul: Our young people, especially the teenagers, especially teenage girls, are under so much stress right now, and the numbers are chilling, the number of young people reporting depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts.

Janae Pierre: New York City public schools say they're updating their cell phone policy to align with the new state law for the upcoming school year. According to a new survey, New York's oldest residents are finding it hard to pay their bills, buy health food, or leave their home. WNYC's Karen Yi has the details.

Karen Yi: The city surveyed more than 8,000 New Yorkers who were 60 years old or older and found many are struggling to pay their rent, credit cards, and food expenses. Nearly a third of those surveyed say they couldn't afford healthy food because it was too expensive. The report also surveyed caregivers and found a third weren't just caring for an older adult, but a child, too. Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez is the commissioner for the Department for the Aging.

Lorraine A. Cortés-Vázquez: That means somebody's income is being compromised because they're in a caregiving role.

Karen Yi: Poverty rates among seniors are rising and city officials say it's only going to get worse after President Trump signed his new tax cut and spending law slashing funding for Medicaid and SNAP.

Janae Pierre: Before we go, we're looking into a new poll on the New Jersey governor's race that puts Democrat Mikie Sherrill's lead against Republican Jack Ciattarelli in the single digits. The poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University has Democratic Congresswoman Sherrill up by eight points against the former state assembly member and three time gubernatorial candidate.

Pollsters say this is what they would expect to see at this stage in a race, especially in the state that leans Democrat, but they say Ciattarelli's focus on local issues like housing and energy costs poll well with independents and could provide a path to an upset. Ciattarelli lost to current governor Phil Murphy by just four points in 2021. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC, I'm Janae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.

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