Facebook helps nab shooting suspect

NYPD detectives used new facial recognition technology this week to make an arrest in a shotgun shooting at a Queens barber shop.

Police ran a Facebook photo of a suspect -- known only by the street name "Armani" -- through NYPD photo databases of previous arrests and narrowed the search to 50 possibilities, investigators said.

The shooting occurred last Saturday evening when the suspect walked into Da Barber Shop at 578 Seneca Ave. in Ridgewood and fired at a man, who sustained nonlife-threatening wounds, police said.

The victim's brother remembered that Armani had a Facebook account, investigators said.

The No. 1 possibility was Jordan Rodriguez, 37, who investigators found had addresses in Brooklyn and Queens, Sgt. Edwin Coele said. He works at the NYPD's newly minted Real Time Crime Center, a unit that provides support for current investigations. The computer matched Rodriguez's photo based on its similarities with the images in police databases, Coele said.

With a possible match, detectives from the 104th Precinct showed Rodriguez's photo to the victim, who identified Rodriguez as the man who fired at him while he was getting a haircut, said Sgt. Michael Ackerman of the precinct's detective squad.

Detectives fanned out and found Rodriguez at his sister's home in Brooklyn on Thursday, Ackerman said.

The time from the shooting to the arrest was five days, a quick turnaround that Ackerman credited to the facial-recognition technology.

"A lot of time you have people [victims] coming in not knowing who you are looking for," Ackerman said.

"It is invaluable," Ackerman said of the recognition technology, which has led to other arrests and produced leads in several open cases.

A spokeswoman for the Queens district attorney's office said Rodriguez was in custody, charged with second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault and other crimes. No arraignment information was available Friday. Rodriguez has prior arrests for assault.

According to Ackerman, when Rodriguez walked into the barber shop the victim punched him in what may have been a dispute over money.

Rodriguez then pulled out what appeared to be a sawed-off shotgun and fired a round of buckshot, which grazed the victim's skull, police said.