An off-duty Port Authority Police Department officer was involved in a deadly domestic incident in the Bronx, New York City, on January 22, 2026. According to police, the officer fatally shot his sister and injured his elderly mother before committing suicide.

Authorities report the incident began shortly before 8 a.m. at a ground-floor apartment on Johnson Avenue, located in the Spuyten Duyvil neighborhood of the Bronx, near Upper Manhattan. Three individuals were shot, two of whom were declared dead at the scene.

After receiving a 911 call reporting multiple shots fired from the building’s reception desk, officers from the 50th Precinct arrived at the scene.

The shooter, Mario Garcia, 55, was found dead in the hallway of a first-floor apartment at 2500 Johnson Ave. in the Spuyten Duyvil section of the Bronx just before 8 a.m. A firearm was found near his body, along with a Port Authority Police Department ID card. His sister, Maria Garcia, 59, was discovered with a fatal gunshot wound to her head in a bedroom. Their 86-year-old mother was found shot in the face and rushed to Harlem Hospital, where she remained in critical but stable condition.

The incident is currently under investigation by local detectives as a domestic shooting.

Garcia had served with the Port Authority Police Department for 23 years and was most recently assigned to LaGuardia Airport. The incident has left the law enforcement community and neighbors in the quiet Riverdale neighborhood struggling to understand what led to the tragedy.

Jane Burbank, a neighbor and friend of the 59-year-old victim, known only as Maria, expressed her sorrow over the tragic incident. “She was a wonderful person, she was full of life. She loved to dance, she loved to get people together, she loved to cook, she loved to eat,” Burbank said.

Maria, who worked for the New York State, was known for her love of dancing and traveling. According to Burbank, she was eagerly anticipating her retirement and the opportunity to travel more extensively.

The shooting allegedly stemmed from a dispute over care for the siblings’ mother, who had recently moved in with Maria Garcia. The family had argued about caring for their mother. Their father is in a senior healthcare facility with dementia.

Elise Selanga, another resident, recounted the scene outside the building. “I looked out my window, and I saw an immersion of cars and ambulances and so forth. And then my neighbor told me that she had heard from somebody in the building that there had been a murder, and then I heard from someone else that it’s a suicide-homicide,” Selanga said.

Daniel Gallant, a fellow resident of the building, expressed his disbelief that such a violent incident could occur in their community.

The investigation is ongoing as detectives attempt to reconstruct the events that led to this tragic domestic incident on the morning of January 22.