18-year-old Charged in East Harlem Grandma Slaying; Taxi Driver Robbed
A machine gun and a knife both wreak havoc
| 08 Sep 2025 | 01:04
Left: 69-year-old Robin Wright, killed by “stray gunfire”; right: wanted for knifepoint robbery. (
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The teenage gunman believed to have shot 69-year-old East Harlem grandma Robin Wright in the face, killing her, has been caught and charged for some his crimes. The gunfire took place on Aug. 27 during wild a Madison Avenue firefight.
News of 18-year-old Faisil McCants’s arrest came from a surprising source: US Attorney Jay Clayton of the federal Southern District of New York (SDNY), not Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecutes borough murder cases.
The distinction was in the details, as SDNY—with the help of the NYPD and the special agent in charge of the New York field office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Ricky J. Patel—is charging McCants with Armed Robbery and Firing a Machine Gun.
Homicide and other charges will surely follow from Bragg, but this first pass at justice for Robin Wright concerns McCants’s alleged federal crimes.
”As a result of this defendant’s allegedly ruthless and utterly reckless violence, an innocent victim was gunned down in broad daylight while simply going about her daily life,” said Patel. “New Yorkers deserve better—full stop.”
It’s believed that McCants and two accomplices, who are still being sought, tried to rob a street-corner marijuana dealer after which things went terribly awry. In the plain language of the federal complaint:
“On or about Aug. 27, 2025, shortly before 12:30pm, Faisil McCants and two co-conspirators (“CC-1” and “CC-2”) robbed a drug dealer (“Individual-1”) near East 109th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan. During the robbery, McCants and his co-conspirators got into a physical altercation with Individual-1 before both McCants and CC-2 grabbed backpacks from Individual-1—which contained marijuana—and then fled north on Madison Avenue, turning onto East 110th Street.”
As he fled the robbery, McCants pulled a black machine gun out of his right sweatshirt pocket and “fired 15 shots in rapid succession in the general direction of Individual-1.” Robin Wright, a 69-year-old grandmother who was standing with a walker on the northwest corner of East 110th Street and Madison Avenue was hit in the face by one of the bullets. She was rushed to a local hospital but could not be saved.
McCants is charged with one count of Hobbs Act robbery, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; and one count of the use, carrying, and possession of a machine gun, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life in prison, and which must be served consecutively to any other sentence imposed.
Taxi Driver Robbed on East 52nd Street
The NYPD is asking for the public’s assistance in identifying the person wanted in connection with a knifepoint robbery that occurred within the confines of the 17th Precinct. Details are as follows:
On Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, at approximately 2:07pm, an unidentified individual was a passenger in a yellow taxi. When the taxi was in front of 353 E. 52 St., the individual displayed a knife and demanded that the 53-year-old male victim stop the car.
The suspect exited the vehicle without paying and fled.
The suspect is described as a male with a medium complexion of indeterminate ethnicity with forehead and left arm tattoos. He was last seen wearing a purple T-shirt and dark-colored pants.