Weekend Schenectady homicide victim identified as city man

PHOTOGRAPHER: John Cropley

A Schenectady police officer keeps watch over the scene Sunday afternoon

SCHENECTADY – City police on Wednesday identified the man killed in Saturday night’s shooting on Maplewood Avenue as a Schenectady man.

Leon J. Graves, 29, was shot and killed at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday in the area of 878 Maplewood Ave., police said.

Officers were called to the scene for a report of shots fired. They arrived to find Graves suffering from a gunshot wound. He died at the scene.

The department continued actively investigating the case Wednesday with the assistance of the state police’s Major Crimes Unit.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the department’s tips line at 518-788-6566.

The scene of the shooting in Schenectady’s Mont Pleasant neighborhood is near the Steinmetz Educational Center and within sight of Mont Pleasant Middle School, which overlooks the street.

The fatal shooting marked the city’s sixth of the the year and came about 2 1/2 months after 22-year-old Albany resident Elnahcere S. Vincent was shot and killed on State Street on Sept. 25. Fellow Albany resident Anibal H. Madera, 27, was charged in that case.

More recently, city police reported a shots fired incident Nov. 26 on Sixth Avenue. Police discovered a bullet hole in a parked car, but no injuries were reported.

Then, on Nov. 23, police reported shots fired in the city’s Northside neighborhood, at Avenue A and Seneca Street. One person was injured. Two people were charged with weapons possession, including the injured man, authorities have said.

Maplewood Avenue was also the scene of a 2019 homicide. In that case, Budhnarain Kadar, 42, was sentenced last month to 19 years to life in state prison after he admitted to the strangulation murder of Marian Singh at 856 Maplewood Ave.