Henryk Siwiak

Case background and investigation

Henryk Siwiak was a 46-year-old Polish immigrant who had been in the United States for about eleven months when he was shot and killed in Brooklyn late on September 11, 2001. According to ABC News, he had arrived in October 2000 and was living in Queens near his sister, while his wife, Ewa, and their two children remained in Poland. He had previously worked for the Polish state railways and was taking construction and cleaning jobs in New York.

The construction site where Siwiak had been working in Lower Manhattan shut down after the attacks on the World Trade Center that morning. Needing income, he found overnight work cleaning floors at a Pathmark supermarket on Albany Avenue in Brooklyn and was due to start that night. ABC News reported that his wife, speaking to him by phone from Poland, had asked him not to go out that evening.

Siwiak did not know Brooklyn well. According to published accounts, he left the subway several miles from the supermarket and walked toward the low-numbered end of Albany Avenue, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, rather than the block where the store stood. At about 11:40 p.m. he was shot near Albany Avenue and Decatur Street. Wounded in the chest, he made his way to the stoop of a house on Decatur Street and rang the bell, but no one opened the door. He collapsed and died at the scene.

The investigation was constrained from the start. Former NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce told ABC News that the department could not respond as it normally would because resources were being sent to Lower Manhattan. According to accounts of the case, an evidence unit that ordinarily handles property crimes processed the scene, and far fewer detectives than usual were available to canvass the neighborhood. People nearby reported hearing gunshots, but no eyewitness came forward.

No motive has been established. Siwiak still had his wallet and cash. Retired detective Michael Prate, who led the case for years, has said he believes the shooting was most likely a robbery attempt that went wrong, possibly complicated by Siwiak's limited English. Investigators and Siwiak's sister have also raised the possibility that his camouflage-style clothing and accent led someone to associate him with the day's attacks. Police did not classify the killing as a hate crime.

Because the victims of the terrorist attacks are excluded from the city's crime statistics, Siwiak's death is the only homicide recorded in New York City for September 11, 2001. Reporting published for the 25th anniversary in September 2026 stated that no arrest has been made and that a $12,000 reward remains available through NYPD Crime Stoppers.