A former European professional basketball player was fatally shot in a targeted murder Friday night at a packed Harlem basketball tournament, cops told The Post.
Kinu Rochford, a standout at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, was shot in the head at around 10:30 p.m. at the Kingdome Basketball Tournament in the Martin Luther King Jr. Towers on Lenox Avenue, police said.
Two other people were wounded when gunfire erupted, cops said.
Kinu Rochford was killed when gunshots rang on a basketball court in Harlem around 10:30 p.m. Friday. FDU Athletics
“It sounded like a firework,” said witness Jessica Montgomery. “And then I heard it again and people started running.”
Rochford, 35, who was playing in the tournament, was shot while watching between games, according to cops.
The shooting stemmed from a squabble Rochford, of Brooklyn, was having with another man, a police source said.
The nature of the beef wasn’t immediately known, the source said.
Rochford, who was playing in the tournament, was struck while watching between games, according to cops and witnesses. Facebook/Kinu Rochford
Emergency responders gave CPR to Rochford, who lived in Crown Heights, and rushed him to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, but he couldn’t be saved, cops said.
The two injured — a 28-year-old man was shot in the shin and a 22-year-old woman was shot in the right forearm — were among the estimated 500 in the crowd watching the tournament between West 112th Street and West 115th Street.
They were both taken to Harlem Hospital in stable condition.
Several mourners arrived Saturday at the Rochford’s Brooklyn Avenue apartment in Crown Heights carrying bouquets of flowers. A man leaving the building screamed, “Kinuuuu!”
A neighbor said Rochford was part of a set of triplets — two boys and a girl — and that his parents were from Trinidad.
The man saw Rochford coming out of the building’s laundry room on Thursday and noticed he had a slight limp.
He remembered “years ago” he would see Rochford’s father in a nearby park watching his sons play basketball.
“Those are my two bulls,” Rochford’s father said of his two sons, the neighbor recalled. “They loved basketball.”
The FDU Knights posted condolences on Instagram about Rochford, a standout power forward and center when he played there from 2011 to 2013.
“FDU is devastated to hear of the tragic passing of former men’s basketball player Kinu Rochford (‘13),” the post reads.
The former Fairleigh Dickinson University athlete was playing in the Kingdome Basketball Tournament when tragedy struck. Christopher Sadowski for NY Post
Rochford was shot twice, cops said. Christopher Sadowski for NY Post
“A standout Knight and leader, Rochford built a legacy in Hackensack. He was 35 years old.”
Rochford told FDU coach Greg Vetrone he would be a workhorse for him if given a chance, he told The Post in 2012. Rochford was right. He averaged 9.3 points per game and hauled in 6.8 boards while starting 20 games.
“I realized it’s [about] preparation,” Rochford told The Post at the time of Division I basketball. “It’s not like a [regular] game. They scout you real well, your ins and outs.”
Dave’s Joint, a website dedicated to basketball, also posted about Rochford’s death on X.
“Our condolences go out to the family & friends of Kinu Rochford, a former standout at Globe Tech & at FDU in the early to mid 2010’s,” the post reads. “May he rest in power!
The 6’6″ Rochford, who played for James Madison High School and Globe Tech, began playing professionally in 2013 and won the Lithuanian National Basketball League championship in 2017 with Garonne Sūduva-Mantinga.
A man and a woman were wounded and taken to a local hospital in stable condition, cops said. Kyle Mazza/Shutterstock
There were no arrests, cops said, and the motive wasn’t clear. Christopher Sadowski for NY Post
He also played professionally in France, Kosovo, Israel, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Switzerland.
He was booted from the British Basketball Championship team the Plymouth Raiders after he tested positive for taking banned substances in 2018, according to the Western Morning News in England.
His last pro gig was with Golden Eagle Ylli in the Kosovo Basketball Superleague in 2021.
It is believed that the drugs were recreational, not performance enhancing, the newspaper reported.
A man at the Harlem tourney – where a mural painted on the court’s surface a day earlier showed Knicks legend Walt Frazier passing the NBA championship trophy to point guard Jalen Brunson — told The Post more needs to be done to stop gunplay in the neighborhood.
“I got kids running around these projects,” he said. “We need more police (on) patrol.”