Andres Valenzuela, 62, of New Rochelle, was murdered on Octobe 14 at 250 AM, after finishing his shift as a tax driver. His body was found in the parking lot of Juliano’s Caterers on Main Street in New Rochelle by police who were driving on partol and saw his body.
Officers went to assist and found Valenzuela with 2 gun shot wounds. He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. Valenzuela had worked for 10 years with Express City Taxi in New Rochelle, sometimes working 7 days a week.
The murder of this hard working man, who was doing nothing wrong but working late a night, should not be accepted or tolerated by the people of New Rochelle, or Westchester County.
On October 17th, 2021, after an exhaustive and extensive investigation, in collaboration with the FBI SafeStreets Task Force and the Westchester County Police Real Time Crime Center, New Rochelle Police and the FBI conducted surveillance on a housing project apartment complex in Brooklyn where the suspect of the October 14th Cab Driver Homicide was believed to be.
At about 10:30am New Rochelle Police Detectives located the suspect in the courtyard of the complex and attempted to apprehend him. As the police identified themselves and ordered him to stop, the suspect began shooting at the police and attempted to flee on foot. The suspect continued to shoot at police in various directions as they converged on him. Several officers returned fire. The suspect ultimately surrendered when he ran out of ammunition. No one was injured in the gun fire.
The suspect was taken into custody by New Rochelle Detectives and then turned over to the FBI. He is facing federal charges in addition to the murder charge for killing Andres Valenzuela on October 14th in New Rochelle. The gun used today to shoot at the police was a .22 caliber revolver and is believed to be the same weapon used in the Cab Driver Homicide. It was taken into evidence and a ballistics check is forthcoming. Percell Lamont Ross, 52 years of age, of Covington, Virginia was a rested, to be charged with Homicide as well as multiple other charges stemming from today’s incident. Ross is a wanted Fugitive from Justice in Connecticut for Attempted Murder and for Sex Trafficking in Virginia.