Cops were called to the second-floor apartment on E. 148th St. near Courtlandt Ave. in Mott Haven around 5:40 p.m. by a 32-year-old man who said someone was trying to remove the cooling unit, police said.

But when officers arrived, they couldn’t find the 911 caller, and began to walk down the stairs in an “extremely tight stairwell” to the first floor, Deputy Chief Rohan Griffith of the NYPD’s Force Investigation Division said at a news conference Sunday night.

As two female officers approached the first-floor landing, they spotted a man coming up the staircase from a side entrance with a kitchen knife in hand.

“One officer gave the male verbal commands, telling him to, ‘Wait! Wait! Wait!’ and also telling him to ‘Drop it! Drop it!’ while also putting her hand up to motion for him to stop,” Griffith said.

When the man continued to “swiftly approach” the officers, one fired her weapon, striking the man in the torso, he added.

Police believe the caller was confronting the air conditioner thief in the building’s side courtyard right before he ran into the stairwell and encountered the cops.

Griffith said police are still searching for the would-be thief, who remained “unidentified” late Sunday.

Waldo Mejia is accused of randomly killing Caleb Rijos as the boy walked to school Friday morning. At the time of the slaying, Mejia, 29, faced an ongoing criminal case for allegedly kicking a neighbor’s door and damaging their Ring doorbell in the suspect’s apartment building in Mott Haven.

The trouble in Mejia’s building on Alexander Ave. near E. 139th St. began when the 43-year-old neighbor was awoken around 4 a.m. by Mejia, who apparently didn’t have a key.

Mejia was pounding on the building’s front door and ringing the neighbor’s intercom, trying to get inside.

The next day, the neighbor encountered Mejia in the staircase and confronted him about the commotion.

“I said, ‘Listen, why you be [ringing] my door?’ ” the neighbor recalled. “You got no keys, ask for the super.”

That conversation apparently set Mejia off.

“Next day, he hit my door — boom!” the neighbor said. “Kicked it hard.”

Ring footage shows Mejia trying to remove his neighbor’s doorbell camera’s lens before getting frustrated about 7 p.m. on Nov. 27. He then angrily kicked the door before retreating upstairs. About 30 minutes later, he returned with a long kitchen knife and stabbed the camera multiple times, cracking it, the creepy footage shows.

Mejia was arrested for harassment and criminal mischief that day, but the charges are not bail eligible so he was cut loose after his arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court.

His quick release and return to the building unsettled his neighbor.

“I got nervous,'” the neighbor said. “I saw him. I said, ‘Oh, my God, this guy’s here.’ ”

Since then, the neighbor has made sure Mejia is not around before leaving home.

“Every time I go by the stairs — my wife is the same way — we had to check my camera to see if the guy left,” the neighbor told The News. “I don’t want nothing to happen to me!”

Neighbors had good reason to be scared of Mejia.

On Jan. 5, Mejia allegedly jumped a 38-year-old stranger heading down the stairs at the Third Ave.-E. 138th St. subway station a block from Mejia’s home, then knifed him in the left arm. The blade perforated the limb, cut an artery and entered the man’s chest cavity, according to a criminal complaint.

The victim needed lifesaving surgery, but he survived. The attacker got away.

Then about 9:30 a.m. on Friday, Mejia ambushed Caleb near E. 138th St. and Lincoln Ave., half a block from the subway attack and close to where the high schooler lived, according to cops

Mejia jammed a serrated kitchen knife twice into the boy’s chest, cutting through his heart and lung, according to cops. The teen ran off and called his father, begging his dad for help with his final breaths.

It took a day for cops to nab Mejia for the slaying. NYPD detectives conducted a 1,000-foot radius search of the area and checked pervious crimes involving knives “and got an interesting result,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a Saturday news conference about the arrest in Caleb’s killing. “Just 750 feet away there was an earlier crime in which an individual stabbed a Ring camera.”

“When detectives showed the arresting officer in that case the images taken from Friday’s stabbing, she immediately recognized the perp as Mr. Mejia,” Tisch added.

“Officers now knew who they were looking for and where he lived. They obtained footage from the same Ring camera he had stabbed weeks prior and saw him leaving his residence a few minutes before Friday’s stabbing.”

Cops grabbed Mejia returning to his building in the first minutes of Saturday. He was wearing the same sneakers and pants he wore during the fatal stabbing about 15 hours earlier, cops said.

“And he was in possession of a bloody knife,” Tisch said.

Mejia has a long criminal history, including four unsealed arrests, Tisch said. Two of those arrests involved knives while a third involved a gun.

Mejia was ordered held without bail during his arraignment on murder charges in Bronx Criminal Court on Saturday. “My name is Waldo Mejia, so get ready to f—–g suffer along with me!” the suspect shouted during his chaotic court appearance.

The neighbor with the damaged Ring doorbell said he was shocked when police knocked on his door Saturday to tell him about Caleb’s killing.

“I feel bad for the mother,” he said. “It’s very bad.”

He mused Mejia might have stabbed him, too, if given the chance.

“You open the door, the guy comes with a knife, and then what? I’ll be dead,” the neighbor said.

“I feel good that the guy is in jail because, you know, I don’t want nothing to happen to nobody. … I feel good. Like, I feel a little safe now. I feel better, Man.”

The fire broke out on the top floor of the Mayfair Apartments on Wallace Ave. near Arnow Ave. at about 1:40 a.m. and quickly spread to the cockloft — the crawlspace between the ceilings of the top floor apartments and the roof, officials said.

“It was a heavy fire that destroyed apartments on the top floor and burned through the roof,” FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito said during a Friday morning press conference at the scene with Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker and Mayor Adams. “The fire had too much headway. It was an extremely dangerous fire for our firefighters.”

More than 250 firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics responded to the fire, FDNY officials said. Images shared by the FDNY showed bright pockets of orange flames breaking through the roof of the 200-foot-long building.

Firefighters fought the blaze through the night and into the morning. Five firefighters and a resident suffered minor injuries and were taken to area hospitals. One resident was treated at the scene, the FDNY said.

Fire marshals were trying to determine what sparked the blaze. The damage to the building was so severe, marshals still hadn’t been able to get into the building to find the fire’s point of origin by Friday afternoon, FDNY sources said.

“This was very difficult for firefighters to fight,” Tucker said. “Thank God there were no serious injuries. That’s a miracle. This was a very, very large fire, wind-driven.”

Jarixa Guzman, 31, her husband and four children fled after the lights suddenly went out in their apartment and they heard the fire crackling before flames burst their way into the unit.

“I heard the crackling in between the walls,” said Guzman. “I told [my husband], ‘go wake up the kids. There’s a fire. There’s a fire.’ He’s like, ‘Where, I don’t see it?’ And then it started coming down from the light fixtures.”

Guzman’s terrified children, ages 6, 8, 10 and 12, scrambled to gather their cats and game systems before fleeing — but weren’t able to save all their pets.

“We grabbed two of the kittens. The mother [cat] just went back in [to the apartment], and then we ended up losing one of [the kittens],” Guzman said. “My kids are hysterical.”

The ASPCA said while “many pets remain missing” both the ASPCA and the Animal Care Centers of NYC were “on standby to conduct animal search and rescue and provide additional support as needed” and providing pet food and supplies as well as emergency boarding and veterinary care.

By Friday afternoon nearly 100 households from the Mayfair Apartments, which included nearly 200 adults and 57 children, had come to nearby P.S. 76 seeking help.

More than 50 of the households applied for emergency shelter, Red Cross officials said.

“We’ll provide emergency assistance, including lodging, connection to the resources that the families need as they plan their next steps in recovering from this disaster,” American Red Cross of Greater New York CEO Doreen Thomann-Howe said Friday.

Julie Scott-Fernandez, 43, her daughter and granddaughter were among the families seeking shelter at P.S. 76 and hoping they could get back into their building to gather their possessions.

“So the entire sixth floor in the building is done. The fifth floor is also done. The fourth floor is filled with smoke and water, so we’re flooded, and they’re not letting us back in the building at all,” said Scott-Fernandez.

“I’m really praying, hoping and praying that we’ll be able to salvage some things, because I do have all my valuables, and I didn’t even grab my purse. They said the marshal has to deem it safe for us before we can get back in. So we’re just waiting,” Scott-Fernandez added.

“All my stuff is a total loss,” said resident Ty Holmes, 36, who works at Madison Square Garden. “I just moved into this apartment, maybe three or four months ago … All I have is what I have on my back. I just bought a new 65-inch TV, which was an accomplishment. Like, this is my first official apartment of my own. All my identification, everything is in there.”

Residents told reporters lack of heat was a chronic problem in the building and some tenants have resorted to using their ovens and space heaters to keep warm, which could have sparked the fire.

Adams said Friday morning that city officials were unaware about any heat complaints in the building.

“We are going to have DOB and other city agencies look into if there’s a chronic condition,” he said. “We’re going to look at if there are 311 calls that were made … and we’re going to find out what the cause of this fire is.”

The city Department of Buildings has a stop work order on the building following a 2019 violation in which debris was found falling from the facade, according to city records.

The DOB has received 61 complaints about the building, mostly about the condition of the elevator, which residents said continually breaks down.

The most recent complaints were filed last February, city records show.

With Cayla Bamberger

Shamael Miller was shot multiple times on Neptune Ave. at W. 33rd St. around 7:15 a.m., police said.

A building worker arriving for an early-morning shift discovered Miller mortally wounded in the lobby, according to another employee.

“And he thought the guy was sleeping, so he tried to shake him up and to wake him up, and he didn’t,” the man said of his colleague. “He didn’t wake up so he went to the store, got a coffee, came back and the guy still was there laying on the floor and was not responsive.”

Building employees dialed 911, and medics rushed Miller to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, but he could not be saved. He lived in the Briarwood section of Queens, according to police.

“[This] kind of makes me a little nervous now, because I work here,” added the employee, who asked not to be named. “That was before coming in, so let’s say I would have came in early today. Would I have been involved because I was here?”

There were no immediate arrests.

Hajj Malik Lovick was given 12 years in prison for wounding Andre McNeil on June 15, 2023 outside a bar on Tompkins Ave. near Hancock St., around the corner from where Lovick and others would later create the 1½-inch deep aquatic attraction they dubbed “Hood Pond.”

According to a criminal complaint, Lovick, 48, shot at McNeil and a group of bystanders twice, hitting McNeil in the right leg and “generating an entry and exit wound.”

“I ask you to give me a chance, your honor,” pleaded Lovick to Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Jane Tully before being sentenced on Friday.

Lovick was convicted in December of attempted murder, assault, criminal possession of a weapon, reckless endangerment, and criminal use of a firearm, said the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.

Lovick encountered the 51-year-old victim outside a bar named Lovers Rock, where the two got into an argument. Lovick, armed with a knife, acted as if he was going to stab McNeil, who was unarmed, said the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.

“After the dispute cooled down the defendant left the vicinity of Lover’s Rock and entered a nearby building. Minutes later, according to the evidence, the defendant returned with a gun and fired twice toward the victim and several bystanders,” the Brooklyn DA’s office said in a press release, adding that the shooting was caught on video.

A crowd of at least 10 supporters came to Lovick’s sentencing — which Lovick’s lawyer Robert T. Isdith pointed out to Tully, asking that she consider that Lovick was the founder and daily operator of the Bed-Stuy Aquarium, which was designed “to support the community.”

Tully said that she took Lovick’s standing in the community and the fact that he is the sole caretaker of his son into consideration. But the judge said his “premeditated” decision to get a gun and fire two shots “put that very community in grave danger.”

Lovick added that there was a written statement from the victim saying Lovick did not shoot him.

“That’s not right, that’s not right,” Lovick said.

After the sentence was given, Lovick was led from the courtroom as family and friends cried out “I love you!”

“Today’s sentence sends a clear message that senseless acts of gun violence have no place in Brooklyn,” said Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.

“The defendant’s decision to open fire over a petty argument not only caused serious harm to the victim but endangered innocent lives in our community. This brazen disregard for safety is unacceptable.”

The summer after the shooting, Lovick — who was out on bail — noticed a leaking fire hydrant on Hancock St. had created a tiny pool in a section of broken sidewalk and imagined fish thriving in the space.

“It was like a condemned Johnny pump. Why not make it better than leaving things that look broken? Why not fix it?” Lovick told the Daily News in August as he sat in a lawn chair guarding the pond.

“[I want to] make it a better place as much as I can,” Lovick said of his neighborhood.

But not everyone was a fan of the aquarium.

Local animal rights advocates and city officials voiced concern the fish would not survive under the hydrant, with some taking matters — and fish — into their own hands, scooping some 35 of the creatures from the tree bed under cover of night.

City Department of Environmental Protection workers shut the hydrant off several times, only to find someone continued to turn it back on after they left, officials said.

In October, the fish were evicted and the broken sidewalk paved over.

On Christmas, a post went up on the Bed-Stuy Aquarium’s Instagram page announcing a coalition of electeds, city agencies and community members had come together to create a new aquarium.

“In January, we will begin planning sessions to realize a permanent aquarium.”

Letter carrier Ray ‘Ray Ray’ Hodges, 36, was waiting to order a sandwich at Joe’s Grocery on Lenox Ave. near W. 118th St. at about 2:30 p.m. Thursday when he got into an argument with 24-year-old Jaia Cruz over who was next in line.

Witnesses said Hodges was about to state his order when Cruz accused him of cutting her place in line. The simple argument suddenly exploded into deadly violence when Cruz stabbed Hodges five times with a steak knife in the neck, chest and arm, according to a criminal complaint.

Hodges died after being rushed to Harlem Hospital.

Cruz was arraigned Friday and charged with second-degree murder. She was held without bail.

Hodges, a Bronx resident, joined the United States Postal Service in 2022 and worked out of the Morningside post office, an agency spokesman said Friday.

“He was an amazing person. He was a great father, a great person,” longtime friend Flip Morales said outside Hodges’ Mott Haven home Friday. “He was always a working man. I’d see him and he’s just going to work.

“It’s just messed up that the family gotta go through this,” Morales, 36, said. “He was trying to just make some money. That’s it. Just getting up doing what you gotta do to provide for his kids and his family, and things like this [happen].”

A sandwich maker at Joe’s Grocery told the Daily News that Hodges was waiting at the counter when the suspect stepped in front of him to place an order and the pair began to argue over who cut who.

As the dispute grew heated, the deli worker stepped between his feuding customers in an effort to de-escalate the fight, only for the suspect to spit in the victim’s face.

“After I separate them, she came from behind me, she spit on him, on his face,” said the sandwich maker, who declined to give his name.

The vile act prompted Hodges to snatch a plastic bottle and hurl it at the suspect, who dodged the drink and then drew a knife, the deli worker said.

“She stabbed him in the neck and one in his stomach,” the worker said. “He keep fighting, so we call the cops, the ambulance, but he just lost, and he passed away.”

A stunned witness to the fatal stabbing said the fight between Hodges and Cruz was “over nothing.”

“It was over a sandwich,” Janet Rich, who was in the deli buying coffee when the fight broke out, told The News Thursday. “It was, ‘I was next. No, I was next.’”

Rich and another woman inside the store attempted to intervene, but neither Hodges nor Cruz wanted to back down, Rich said.

“I got in between them — twice,” said Rich, who remembered a woman with dreadlocks also jumped in, imploring Hodges to stand down

“Don’t do this, you have a good job,” Rich recalled the woman saying. “Let this go.”

But Hodges didn’t relent. Instead, he took off his coat and said to Cruz, “You want to stab me?”

“I picked up his coat and put it back on,” Rich said. “I was trying to prevent the fight.”

Cruz ran to her nearby home after stabbing Hodges, but was quickly taken into custody and charged with second degree murder.

Her arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court was pending.

Most of Hodges’ immediate family were too grief stricken to talk to reporters Friday.

“Ray was a great person,” his brother told The News when seen outside Hodges home. “He was an honorable man. He took care of his family and everybody. Respectful.”

Friends and relatives set up a memorial outside his home with votive candles encircling a USPS visor.

“‘RAY RAY” someone wrote in black marker. “WE WILL MISS YOU!”

“We loved him. The community loved him,” said another longtime friend, who would only identify himself as the Swagger King.

Hodges, who he knew as “Ray Gun” was a “good kid” he said.

“That s–t was senseless,” he said about Hodges death. “[But] we’re in a community where a lot of senseless s–t happens. It’s whack.”

One of Hodges’ longtime neighbors, who would only identify herself as Mrs. Jenkins, broke down in tears as she wondered how a simple disagreement could end up in so much bloodshed.

“He is such a polite person. He holds the door for me and everybody,” said Mrs. Jenkins, 65, who couldn’t come to terms with what happened.

“It’s coward-like. Why?” she asked. “It’s senseless. I mean why?”

Four gunmen fired nearly 30 shots at a crowd of about 15 people waiting outside the the Amazura concert hall at 144th Pl. near Archer Ave. in Jamaica Wednesday hoping to get in about 11:15 p.m., police said. The 10 victims — six females and four males between 16 and 20 years old — were taken to various local hospitals.

Cops on Thursday were trying to establish if the shooting was sparked by tensions between rival gangs.

“That’s one of the avenues we’re pursuing but it’s too early to determine right now,” NYPD Chief of Patrol Philip Rivera said at an early morning press conference outside the Queens club.

Most of the victims were shot in the legs as they scrambled for cover. One victim was shot in the arm and another suffered a graze wound to the back, cops said.

Many of the victims were found bleeding at the scene, waiting for ambulances. At least three showed up at Jamaica Hospital on their own seeking medical care.

The shooters fired from the corner — about 75 to 100 feet from the crowd.

As the gun smoke cleared, four young men, at least three of whom opened fire, ran off west on 91st St. and jumped into a gray Infiniti sedan with New Jersey plates, cops said. No arrests have been made.

The celebration of life event was being held in honor of Tea’Arion Mungo, who was shot to death outside NYCHA’s Walt Whitman Houses in Brooklyn during a spate of October violence that claimed the lives of five teens in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx in as many days.

The 11th grader, who attended George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School, was an aspiring electrician who played varsity basketball for the school’s team, the Warriors, relatives said in October.

On Wednesday night, friends gathered at the venue to celebrate what would have been Tea’Arion’s 17th birthday.

Investigators said the venue space was booked for more than it could hold, with people entering as others left. According to sources, Tea’Arion’s still-grieving mother wanted to invite 120 people, but the space only holds 90. Police said the limit left some people waiting outside as the gunfire erupted.

“There’s zero tolerance for these senseless shootings, these horrible acts of violence on our streets,” Rivera said. “Those responsible for this crime will be apprehended and brought to justice.”

Among the victims of the Amazura shooting was an 18-year-old girl who was friends with Tea’Arion from their Brooklyn neighborhood, according to her father. The girl was struck in the left shin and was undergoing a five-hour operation.

“She’s in a lot of pain,” the worried father said. “Only time will tell, and we’ll see what happens with recovery, and, you know, emotionally. I’ve been at the hospital from the time it happened, so I’m still trying to process all this stuff. It’s very heartbreaking, I have to sit here and watch my child screaming at the top of her lungs and stuff like that.”

He said his daughter called him shortly after she had been shot.

“You get this phone call in the middle of the night and this is what happened,” he said. “And you panic because there’s no information given to you until you get there. She called me, actually. She said ‘Dad I got shot.’ She was in the ambulance. I was like, ‘What?’ The ambulance guy, he told me what hospital she was at, so I just went there.”

He said between being shot and her friend’s death, his daughter had been through a lot.

“Everybody grew up together,” he said. “It was heartbreaking to hear that, when that happened. They grew up from elementary school and everything.”

He said the New Year’s Day shooting only made it worse.

“It’s unfortunate because Jan. 1 is also her mother’s birthday,” the father said. “Her mom passed away six years ago, so that’s why I said she’s been through worse. It was just a celebration of Mommy’s birthday. They were celebrating the life of her friend … and this happened. Nobody wants to hear this. This is something that no parent wants to hear.”

Mayor Adams said the shooting isn’t linked to any terror attacks like the one which occurred on New Year’s Day in New Orleans which left 15 people dead after a truck rammed into a crowd of revelers.

“There is no room for this criminal behavior in our city and we are determined to bring these dangerous individuals to justice and get illegal guns off our streets,” he added.

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards also condemned the violence.

“Under no circumstance will we allow any example of gun violence in our borough to go unpunished,” Donovan said. “I’m confident that those who perpetrated this heinous act will be arrested and held accountable.”

A 19-year-old man from Pennsylvania visiting relatives near the club said his family thought what they heard was fireworks ringing in the new year.

“It was like really loud,” he said. “And then me and my cousin are thinking, ‘Wait, you think it could be what we’re thinking?’ And then maybe five minutes later we get a message on the Citizen app: Shooting. We heard the ambulances and the cops came really quickly. We all got really scared.”

The visitor said his relatives have heard gunfire before but he wasn’t used to it as an out-of-towner.

“They know this nightclub right here is always a lot of people there, like police presence every now and then,” he said. “So this is pretty much normal for them … It was pretty surprising for me.”

Another neighborhood visitor, Aspen Palmquist, 29, said he accidentally stepped in a pool of blood outside the club.

“We’re just enjoying our day when suddenly I just accidentally stepped in blood,” said Palmquist, who is visiting from Hawaii. “We’re actually on vacation here for New Year’s and just kind of checking out the city today,” he added. “Not what I expected to see though.”

The nightclub can hold up to 4,000 people and usually holds DJ dance parties and raves. DJs who have performed there in the past include Felix Bizarre, Black Daddy, and DJ X-Dream.

“We are deeply saddened by the recent and unfortunate isolated incident that occurred,” Amazura’s management wrote on Instagram. “Our hearts go out to all those affected by this senseless act. We are working closely with law enforcement to ensure a thorough investigation and to help bring those responsible to justice.”

Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.

The shocking overseas incident saw a man plow a black BMW at high speed into a row of shoppers at a crowded Christmas market in the town of Magdeburg. The driver is reportedly a 50-year-old doctor originally from Saudi Arabia with a history of making “anti-Islam statements.”

In response to the deadly attack, the NYPD ramped up security at the numerous holiday markets around the city.

Jonathan Cooling, 29, a vendor at a stall at the popular Union Square Holiday Market, said he wasn’t stressing out over news of the attack.

“I’m calm because, if anything did happen, we just got to keep going,” he said. “And, if I think we got to help each other out, I accept that as my responsibility.”

Peter Wohlsen, 46 was at the Downtown market with his young son but expressed no worry of similar attacks spreading to any of New York City’s bustling outdoor holiday shopping hubs.

“I read about it,” he said. “It doesn’t have any effect. It didn’t even occur to me coming here to compare them… It’s easy to get to from where we live — so just get off the train, come here. My son really wanted to come and shop, and he really likes coming to the market.”

An art vendor at the festive holiday spot named Veda, 31, said the car rampage at the European market wouldn’t really impact business and that she wasn’t too worried about anything like it happening here.

“No, it’s New York,” she shrugged. “People are people doing whatever they got. I mean, even with the tourists, it’s like, whatever happens, we’re there, you know. We’ve been pretty much just as busy as usual. It hasn’t been more quiet or anything.”

One shopper who had just come to New York from Germany said he personally felt safe, yet worried how his country would respond to the incident and prevent ones like it from happening in the future. In terms of the odds, though, he noted there are countless Christmas markets — at least “1 million,” he said, with exaggeration — in his homeland, which is where the tradition originated.

“Yes, I would also say I feel safe in Germany most of the time because there are a lot of Christmas markets,” he said. “I would say we have probably 1 million cities, and each city has one, each little town has one. And, yes, so one of 1 million is not that big of a number in the end. It’s not like I’m fearful every time I go there.”

Cops were called to the rear of an address on Haight St. near 41st Ave. in Flushing at about 9:20 p.m. Thursday, where they found a 37-year-old shot in the head.

EMS rushed the victim to NY-Presbyterian Queens, where he remained in critical condition on Friday.

At about the same time, a 42-year-old man showed up at the same hospital with a bullet wound to his cheek, cops said. Investigators determined that he and the other victim were together in the gambling joint when they were both shot by the robber, according to a police source with knowledge of the case.

After the bullets stopped flying, the older victim ran from the scene and took himself to NY-Presbyterian Queens for treatment, cops said.

Three Hispanic men were seen running from the scene after the shooting, police said. The men jumped into a white SUV with front-end damage and ran off.

No arrests have been made. Cops were scouring the area for surveillance footage that could help them identify the shooters.

On Friday police had cordoned off most of the block in the heavily Asian community. Cops could be seen entering a café with Anime images papering the front windows.

“There are a few underground gambling … rooms around this block,” said a neighborhood cabinet maker who didn’t want to give his name. “I think this happens a lot. It’s just only this time people were shot.”

Other Flushing residents told the Daily News that illegal gambling halls were an open secret, but violence at these places was a rarity, they said.

“It really makes people terrified,” an area worker said about the double shooting.

“When I saw [the cops] locking down the street, I just told my co-worker this morning, ‘I’m planning to move out,'” the cabinet maker said. “I even texted my landlords, ‘I probably will move out in two months,’ because this street right here is dangerous.

“This place is crazy right now,” he said.

The 40-year-old victim was shot in the torso near E. 175th St. and Monroe Ave. about 7:30 a.m., cops said.

Medics rushed the victim to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he died. Cops are trying to identify the victim.

The air rifle, which appeared to be a break-action pellet gun, was spotted with a damaged scope on the ground inside the crime scene as cops investigated.

Two bullet holes were spotted in the front windshield of a silver Lincoln sedan parked near the crime scene.

A Bronx woman who was in the area visiting her mother, who lives two blocks from the crime scene, told the Daily News after Thursday’s shooting that the neighborhood is plagued by violent crime.

“This is sickening,” said the 66-year-old woman, who asked to remain anonymous. “This is every day. Innocent people get killed all the time.”

No arrests have been made.