Ruth Enriquez de Tiburcio, the second eldest of the Enriquez brothers, said Tuesday that she was “relieved” and that the news of the arrest would comfort her parents, but her feelings were complicated.
“Whether he goes to jail or not, I don’t get my brother back,” he said of Mr. Abdullah. “But you want someone responsible off the street to pay for what he did.”
At the moment, he said, he is focusing on making arrangements for his brother’s funeral.
Her sister, Griselda Vile, called on New York City officials to find solutions. “I don’t want him to die in vain,” Ms. Vile said. “I need to know that the city will be better for my children.”
Mr. Enriquez was a beloved uncle of a distant herd of nieces and nephews, and lived with his longtime partner, Adam Pollack. Raised in Spanish and English, Mr. Enriquez had become a kind of polyglot, having studied French, Italian, and Latin. He loved the steak at Peter Luger’s restaurant in Williamsburg and was known for a booming, boisterous laugh, his family said.
His meeting with Mr. Abdullah on Sunday seemed a dark coincidence; Mr. Enriquez had avoided the train for almost two years, Mr. Pollack, first because of the pandemic and remote work, and more recently because of concerns about the security of the subway system. He had recently started taking the train on weekends because the prices of shared travel apps like Uber had become very expensive, Pollack said.
In recent years, Mr. Abdullah had been charged with various crimes related to weapons. In 2016, he was charged as part of a large-scale gang case in Manhattan, and in 2018 he pleaded guilty to a two-gang Harlem gun charge. He was released on parole after four months in prison, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections said.
In 2020, he faced new gun charges in Manhattan, according to court records, a pending case, and he was placed on bail. In March 2021, Manhattan prosecutors charged him with assault and endangering the welfare of a child.