Faisil McCants will spend 37.5 years in federal prison after unleashing 15 shots from a converted machine gun during an August 2025 robbery in East Harlem that killed a 69-year-old bystander, a grandmother out in the middle of the day. The sentence was handed down Tuesday in Manhattan federal court after McCants’s guilty plea, capping months of investigation and court hearings. Neighbors say the brazen midday gunfire, which left a walker abandoned on the sidewalk, shook a community that had been hoping gun violence was finally slowing down.
“McCants, a repeat violent offender, fired 15 rounds in seconds on an East Harlem street and killed an innocent 69-year-old woman,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “He will now be where he should be: serving a 37.5-year prison sentence.” https://x.com/i/status/2051780303757115674
— U.S. Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) May 5, 2026
U.S. Attorney frames the case as a daytime outrage
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of…..