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Lahione Soto

Age : 30

Gender : Male

Race : Latino/a/e

Date : 08/17/2025

Location : West 173rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue

City : Manhattan

County : New York

State : New York

Agency : New York Police Department

Officer(s) :Not Disclosed

Cause of Death : Gunshot

Event : Killed by off-duty police during alleged armed robbery

OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :

On 08/17/2025, at approximately 9:46 p.m., an off-duty New York City police officer shot and killed 30-year-old Lahione Soto outside a residential building near West 173rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights. Soto was transported to NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, where he was pronounced dead. The New York Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigation subsequently opened an independent investigation into the killing.
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Soto was from the Dominican Republic. Although some reporting describes his immigration status, that does not establish a racial classification for database purposes, so Race remains Unknown.
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According to NYPD Deputy Chief Eric Pagan, the off-duty officer was standing outside the apartment building when Soto and another man arrived on separate mopeds. Police alleged that one of the men got off his moped, approached the officer and asked whether a person named Steve lived there.
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Police alleged that Soto then displayed a handgun. The off-duty officer drew his service weapon and fired multiple rounds. Later reporting stated that the officer fired three rounds, striking Soto three times in the chest.
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The second man fled on a moped. Police recovered a loaded 9mm handgun at the scene. The off-duty officer was taken to a hospital with injuries described as non-life-threatening.
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Police subsequently alleged that Soto and the other man had committed three armed robberies in the immediate area during approximately 13 minutes before encountering the off-duty officer. According to police-source reporting, the first occurred at approximately 9:35 p.m. behind 4040 Broadway, where a 27-year-old man was robbed of his moped at gunpoint.
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Approximately five minutes later, police alleged that the two men robbed a married couple outside 3800 Broadway, taking jewelry from the woman and striking her husband with a handgun. Police attributed another robbery moments later to the same pair, involving a 55-year-old man whose jewelry was taken at gunpoint.
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Police reported finding some of the property taken during those earlier robberies on Soto after he was shot. Investigators also examined whether the robbery pattern was connected to the July 2025 shooting of an off-duty U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer during another moped robbery in the Washington Heights area.
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The fatal encounter was not captured by a police body-worn camera because the shooting officer was off duty. However, the New York Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigation subsequently obtained and publicly posted video footage associated with the case. The OSI case remains listed in the Attorney General’s investigative database.
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Under New York Executive Law §70-b, the Attorney General’s Office of Special Investigation investigates deaths potentially caused by police officers regardless of whether the officer was on or off duty and regardless of whether the civilian was armed. OSI formally opened its investigation into Soto’s death on 08/21/2025.
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As of the latest OSI case listing, Soto’s case shows an investigation announcement and released video footage but no final investigative report or notification of findings. This contrasts with other 2025 cases on the same OSI list that now contain completed reports and findings, indicating that the state investigation into Soto’s death has not yet reached a publicly posted final disposition.
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The shooting occurred during an unusually concentrated period of NYPD gunfire. It was the department’s third police shooting in five days and the second fatal shooting involving an off-duty NYPD officer within approximately 48 hours. Two days earlier, on 08/15/2025, an off-duty NYPD officer fatally shot Jesse Campbell on Staten Island.
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The broader department record also warrants attention. NYPD maintains detailed annual use-of-force reporting and quarterly force data, including firearm discharges and encounter categories. Its official public database allows year-to-year examination of police force incidents rather than treating individual shootings as isolated events.
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By 2025, NYPD was also continuing to generate substantial civil-liability costs. New York City ultimately paid more than $117 million in police-misconduct settlements and judgments during 2025, according to an analysis of city data reported the following year. More than 1,000 NYPD-related lawsuits were resolved during the year, including 17 cases exceeding $1 million. A substantial portion of the total involved older wrongful-conviction cases, so the aggregate should not be interpreted as representing only contemporary street-level misconduct.
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OFFICER BACKGROUND
The off-duty NYPD officer who shot Lahione Soto has not been publicly identified.
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SOURCE LINKS :

https://www.amny.com/police-fire/off-duty-cop-police-involved-shooting-manhattan-08172025/
https://nypost.com/2025/08/18/us-news/moped-riding-perp-shot-dead-after-pulling-gun-on-nypd-cop-during-robbery-was-an-illegal-migrant-involved-in-three-other-thefts/
https://abc7ny.com/post/off-duty-nypd-officer-fatally-shoots-man-carrying-firearm-washington-heights/17574479/
https://www.aol.com/off-duty-nypd-cop-shoots-091809465.html
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2025/attorney-general-james-office-special-investigation-opens-investigation-23
https://ag.ny.gov/office-special-investigation/investigative-reports
https://www.police1.com/officer-shootings/robbery-suspect-points-gun-at-off-duty-nypd-cop-before-fatal-ois
https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/reports-analysis/use-of-force.page
https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/reports-analysis/use-of-force-data.page