The NYPD identified an elusive suspect in the New Years’ Day road rage-fueled fatal shooting of a Bronx Uber driver – the first homicide of the year – as they released a close-up image of his face.
Ehinel Troncoso, 24, is wanted in connection to the deadly shooting of Issa Mbolo-Isac, 55, at the intersection of Morris Avenue and the Cross Bronx Expressway in Mount Hope just before 7 a.m. Jan. 1, cops said.
Investigators believe Troncoso – a stranger to Mbolo-Isac – was in a bar drinking before the fender-bender that led to the deadly violence, law enforcement sources said Thursday.
Troncoso initially approached Mbolo-Isaac’s ride – sparking the heated exchange – and then claimed he was going back to his car to grab his information, according to the sources.
But instead, he came back with a gun and opened fire, hitting the hard-working, married dad-of-four in the head before whizzing away in his ride, the sources said.
Mbolo-Isac was pronounced dead at the scene, cops said.
“This is very hurtful to us as an industry, to wake up New Year’s Day and know that one of your drivers was murdered, was shot twice in the head,” Fernando Mateo, the spokesman for the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, said hours after the shooting. “It was no easy news to swallow.”
Mateo initially said two men “tried to physically take [Mbolo-Isac] out of the car” during the fatal confrontation, but cops could not confirm Thursday whether anyone else was in the car with Troncoso.
Mbolo-Isac, an emigree from Burkina Faso, had worked as a rideshare driver for 10 years – the most recent five with Uber, Mateo said.
He once owned a taxi medallion, but sold it to buy a house back in Burkina Faso, according to Mateo.
“He was a very good, hard-working man,” the slain driver’s brother, Mounir Zoron, 35, said alongside Mateo. “He worked very hard every day to support his family. He had no issue with anybody. He was trying to run away from these a–holes. He was trying to run away from them and they shot him. They’re criminals. They’re animals. He did absolutely nothing to deserve this.”
The NYPD on Wednesday night released a surveillance image of Troncoso, apparently inside of a building.
No information was immediately available on where Troncoso is from, or if he had a previous criminal record.
The taxi drivers’ federation is offering a $10,000 reward for anyone who can provide information on “who killed Issa in cold blood,” Mateo said last week.
Anyone with information on the suspect’s whereabouts is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, on X @NYPDTips.
