Evening Roundup: NYPD Seeks Help in UnitedHealthcare CEO Shooting, Mayor Adams Pushes Tax Cuts, Fencing Legend Remembered, and Chelsea’s Toy Duck Mystery So...

[music]

Jared Marcelle: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jared Marcelle. The NYPD has brought in detectives from other precincts to help investigate the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Thompson was shot and killed Wednesday morning outside the Midtown Hilton Hotel where his company was hosting its annual investor conference. The NYPD says the shooting appears to be a targeted attack by someone proficient in using a gun. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch says the gunman allowed several pedestrians to pass before firing multiple shots, hitting Thompson in the back and leg.

Jessica Tisch: Every indication is that this was a premeditated, pre-planned targeted attack.

Jared Marcelle: The NYPD is asking for the public's help to find the shooter and have increased the crime stopper's reward to $10,000. Police say the gunman was last seen on video walking away and riding a city bike into Central Park and that the motive for the shooting is unknown. For the latest updates on this developing story, check out our news site, Gothamist. Mayor Eric Adams is pushing Albany for income tax cuts. He says it'll put $63 million back in the pockets of more than half a million working-class New Yorkers.

Mayor Eric Adams: We can't bring down the cost of bread, but we can give you some bread so that you can pay for the bills and the necessities that you have.

Jared Marcelle: The mayor, who is running for re-election, doesn't actually have the power to enact the tax cut. State lawmakers will have to introduce it in the next legislative session starting next month, and pass it as part of the state budget.

[MUSIC - The Freak Show: Shine]

Jared Marcelle: Barrier-beaking fencer Peter Westbrook has died. He grew up in Newark, New Jersey, and made history as the first African American and Asian American to win an Olympic medal in fencing, a sport often associated with European traditions. Westbrook also founded the Peter Westbrook Foundation in Manhattan, which helps young people from marginalized communities get into fencing. One of its alumni, Lauren Scruggs from Queens, recently won an Olympic medal herself. Peter Westbrook was 72. Up next, a mystery in Chelsea involving tiny magnetic ducks has finally been solved. That story after the break.

[music]

Announcer: You're listening to NYC Now.

Jared Marcelle: For the past year, tiny magnetic ducks and other small plastic creatures have been popping up on railings, poles, and fences around Chelsea. Kids in the neighborhood have turned it into a trading craze, but the mystery of who's been leaving them has stumped everyone until now. WNYC's Stephen Nessen cracks the case.

Stephen Nessen: Stop by any playground in Chelsea and ask kids if they know about these little ducks and magnetic toys.

Faisal Alderbas: I know a lot about them. I have a lot of rare ones. I have some that there are only three out of three of them in the whole school or something.

Stephen Nessen: That's nine-year-old Faisal Alderbas. As soon as other kids at the Clement Clarke Moore Park hear us talking about the mysterious magnetic toys, a herd comes storming over.

Lulu: It's crazy. I have so many.

Ada: There's like hundreds of them on the street.

Stephen Nessen: 10-year-old Ada says she's seen hundreds in recent months.

Lulu: It's like a fun thing of just walking around in the city. It's like a scavenger hunt, but not planned really.

Ada: You're just waiting for your adult to get off the phone and you're bored, so you're just looking around and then you spot them.

Stephen Nessen: Her friend, Lulu, who's also 10, likes how they just seem to appear randomly.

Lulu: It's like really fun. Also, just seeing one is like a mystery because they're just left around the town.

Stephen Nessen: I've been hunting for this mysterious person leaving the ducks since last year when I got a tip from a local parent that the person I should look for is an older man named Brian. He dresses impeccably well and frequently goes to one coffee shop. I left my business card there. I left lots of cards and stopped by frequently, but I never caught him. Every barista told me he doesn't want to talk. It turns out I should have had my eye out for another person. How's it going?

JJ Cirillo: Good. How are you?

Stephen Nessen: Good. Good to meet you.

JJ Cirillo: I have got to show you what I--

Stephen Nessen: That's JJ Cirillo.

JJ Cirillo: Otherwise known as the duck person.

Stephen Nessen: We meet in Chelsea on a recent afternoon. Cirillo is 52 years old, has close-cropped hair, dark sunglasses. She lives in Inwood Park and is a dog walker in Chelsea. Is she connected to Brian?

JJ Cirillo: Brian's like the genius. You were looking for Brian. He's very elusive. He's like Bigfoot.

Stephen Nessen: Turns out JJ does know Brian.

JJ Cirillo: Before COVID, I would find these Lego men magnets on the rails and I would get so excited and happy once I found them. I was like, "Oh, my God." Then we'd get home and I would put it on my fridge and I would show my wife and she was like, "Whatever." She thinks I'm nuts.

Stephen Nessen: One day, Cirillo's out on the streets walking her clients' dogs.

JJ Cirillo: I see this really meticulously dressed man, catches my eye. I'm just watching him and I see him. As he's walking, he takes a little bend down and he sticks something to one of the rails. I look and there it was. It was a Lego.

Stephen Nessen: She still doesn't talk to him. Then COVID hits and she's away from the neighborhood for a while. Fast forward to last December.

JJ Cirillo: I ran into him. What he was doing is he was just putting up little ducks with Santa Claus hats on. He had a handful of them. I thought, "Wow, let me approach him and see what's going on." I was like, "Are you the duck guy?"

Stephen Nessen: Cirillo says he admitted, yes, it was him.

JJ Cirillo: I said, "Did you ever do Legos?" He said, "Yes, but they got too expensive. That's why I went to the ducks."

Stephen Nessen: Cirillo thought it was brilliant, but could reach so many more people.

JJ Cirillo: From there, I decided to go on a much larger scale and just fill this whole Chelsea with ducks everywhere.

Stephen Nessen: The pocket of her puffy jacket is bulging with magnetic ducks and other creatures. As we walk around Chelsea, she casually fishes out one toy and stealthily sticks it to a stop sign, a railing, and one in front of the Highline Hotel.

JJ Cirillo: I stick them in there so that people really have to look to find them.

Stephen Nessen: Like Brian before her, Cirillo glues magnets to the bottom of the toys by hand.

JJ Cirillo: I spend a lot of my time on weekends just making ducks. It helps me to stay centered and balanced and quiet. It just quiets my mind.

Stephen Nessen: She estimates since last year when she started, she's dropped off nearly 30,000 ducks and other animals.

JJ Cirillo: The only thing I don't like about this venture is, as much as I enjoy it, it's a very expensive venture. I guess if I had anything, it would be just something like a little duck fund, GoDuckMe. It's not even to make money. It's more about breaking even so that I could buy more ducks.

Stephen Nessen: Like any good mystery, once one case is solved, another one walks in the door. Earlier this month, a red box the size of a small briefcase fixed to a no-parking sign on 10th Avenue near 23rd Street appeared. JJ says she didn't do it. I go to check it out and run into six-year-old Lolo and her eight-year-old sister Blake, devoted duck collectors, who are also seeing the box for the first time.

Blake: No, you don't get all of them.

Speaker 11: Wow. Awesome.

Blake: You got to give one and then take it. You can only give one and then you got to take it.

Stephen Nessen: Inside, there are three levels full of magnetic ducks. On the inside of the small door, it reads, "Give a duck, take a duck."

Lolo: Are you going to put little fish in?

Blake: No, because we're going to trade them.

Lolo: I'm going to trade. I'm going to trade some ducks.

Speaker 11: Are you done?

Stephen Nessen: The new duck library is welcome news to Blake, who is not a duck hoarder by nature. On a family vacation to Rome this summer, she wanted to spread the good vibes and brought a pile of ducks to leave in the Italian capital.

Blake: Yes, but I ran out of ducks.

Stephen Nessen: Now, she wants to switch roles.

Blake: I decided to make my own. I glued magnets on little erasers, like these ones, pumpkin ones. There's leaves and a darker pumpkin, and there's egg corns.

Stephen Nessen: She may leave some in the new duck library.

Blake: Then maybe in winter, I'll get a snowman packet or something. Then I hide them around like the duckies.

Stephen Nessen: There are still lingering questions.

Blake: Who made this, though?

Stephen Nessen: Good question, Blake. If it wasn't JJ, was it Brian? Could I finally track him down? Brian did eventually return my call. He insisted he wants to remain anonymous and didn't want to do a taped interview, but he did confirm he was the one who installed the duck library just to find a new way to bring joy and spread whimsy. Case closed.

Blake: Wait, I took mine back.

Lolo: I put that in. I did.

[music]

Jared Marcelle: That's WNYC's Stephen Nessen. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Jared Marcelle. See you tomorrow.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.