NEW YORK – A man admitted shooting two women during a night of mayhem near Times Square last spring, pleading guilty Thursday to some of the most serious charges to arise from what has become a raucous annual ritual for some.
Rayvon Guice, 21, pleaded guilty Thursday to attempted murder and other charges stemming from the melee that unfolded late on April 4 and early April 5. His plea deal calls for a 16-year prison term at his sentencing, set for Jan. 19.
Guice was one of hundreds of young people who poured into the Times Square area in a rowdy tradition that has cropped up on the weekend of the New York International Auto Show, police said. Last year, the chaos started on Easter Sunday.
Four people were shot — one with a BB gun — while people hurled bottles at one another, blocked streets and sidewalks and belligerently confronted officers, police said.
More than 30 people were arrested. About two dozen more were released after being ticketed or given juvenile reports, which are written records kept on file at police precincts.
The annual ruckus had spurred stabbings and dozens of arrests in previous years, but the 2010 brawl resulted in more arrests and gained more attention than usual. Mayor Michael Bloomberg described the night's events as "wilding," using a word created by the media to describe the notorious 1989 rape of a woman known as the Central Park jogger. Five men were charged with gang-raping her; their convictions were thrown out in 2002.
Guice went to Times Square with some friends from his Bronx neighborhood, according to a police report.
He told a judge Thursday he fired a .380-caliber handgun twice at someone whose name he didn't know. Two 19-year-old women were shot, one in the elbow and another in the thigh. Separately, another man was hit in the ankle in an unrelated shooting and a woman was hit with a shot from a BB gun.
Guice said he'd wanted to wound, not kill, his target. But "I want to take the plea" to attempted murder, said Guice, who has a previous attempted weapons-possession conviction and is facing drug-possession and conspiracy charges in the Bronx. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
When arrested in the midtown Manhattan mayhem, he told officers to make sure he wasn't jailed with Bloods gang members, or "I'll be fighting!" according to the police report.
"This guilty plea puts a dangerous felon behind bars for many years," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said in a statement. Guice's lawyer declined to comment after the court hearing.
Guice's case was the most serious stemming from the melee that night. Some other people arrested also have pleaded guilty to various charges, including a teenager who pleaded guilty to assault for hurting two police officers.
A few cases have been dismissed, and many remain open.
