Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Ike Ford was sentenced to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the shooting death of a schoolteacher who was walking his dog when the defendant fired upon a rival gang member in broad daylight.  The teacher, George Rosa, was shot in the abdomen by a stray bullet fired by Ford. Ford was 17 at the time of the July 2020, shooting but has been sentenced as an adult given the severity of the crime.

District Attorney Katz said: “The entire city grieved the senseless death of beloved social studies teacher George Rosa, who was simply walking his dog. It’s precisely to prevent tragedies such as this that we fight so hard to get illegal guns and the criminals who use them of our streets. We will not surrender our streets to reckless violence and illegal guns.”

Ford, 19, of 12^th Street in Long Island City, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the first degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder, who sentenced the defendant to 19 years in prison followed by five years of post-release supervision.

According to the charges, at approximately 11:20 a.m. on July 25, 2020, George Rosa, 53, was walking his dog in his Long Island City neighborhood, along 40^th Avenue between 21^st and 22^nd Streets.  The defendant, aided by fellow gang member Delante Aiken, fired several shots at a rival gang member but missed his target and struck Rosa. The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital and died from the gunshot wound 31 days later.

Ford was originally arrested August 25, 2020, following another shooting in which he was accused of firing a gun near 40^th Avenue and 10^th Street in Queens.  No one was believed to have been injured.  Ford was re-arrested in August 2021, along with Aiken and 26 other reputed gang members indicted on conspiracy, murder, weapons and other charges  for crimes committed in Long Island City.

Assistant District Attorney Graham Amodeo, of the District Attorney’s Violent Criminal Enterprises Bureau, prosecuted the case, with the assistance of ADA Genevieve Gadaleta, under the supervision of Bureau Chief Jonathan R. Sennett, and Assistant District Attorneys Michele Goldstein, Senior Deputy Bureau Chief, and Philip Anderson, Deputy Chief, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney of Investigations Gerard Brave.