Bronx tenant who shot super to death often called cops on neighbors, sued landlord

The disgruntled Bronx tenant accused of shooting to death the super of his building and wounding two others had in recent months filed criminal complaints against his neighbors, made multiple calls to 311 about building issues and sued his landlord over a bedbug infestation, the Daily News has learned.

The legal deluge murder suspect Jimmy Avila launched at neighbors and staff in his rent-controlled College Ave. apartment building exploded in gun smoke and bloodshed on Wednesday morning — and three days later Avila died on Rikers Island.

Avila’s cause of death has not yet been determined after he died in jail Saturday, just a day after being arraigned for murder in Bronx Criminal Court.

The lawsuits and complaints give insights into his mindset as tensions mounted in the building.

Avila, 44, was placed in the apartment near E. 170th St. by Bronx Addiction Services, a nonprofit that works with the state Office of Mental Health, according to court documents.

A volunteer at the nonprofit who became close with Avila said the murder suspect was never menacing — but was quick to sue.

“He has no violence in his past but he has judgment issues with organizations,” the volunteer who only wished to be identified as Robert, said after the shooting. “Sometimes he goes to the drugstore to get his prescription filled and he wonders what’s going on. Before you know it, they may be sued.”

In June 2024, Avila sued his landlord, 1412 Col LLC, and the building management company, JSAF Management, in Bronx Civil Court, complaining his first-floor apartment had a bedbug infestation and that the electrical outlets along one wall weren’t working. Lawyers had been expected to have another hearing on his case this coming Friday.

Things got so heated during pre-trial appearances that the landlord’s attorneys requested in a letter to Judge Omer Shahid dated June 18 that all further appearances be held virtually “due to comments (Avila) allegedly made in the halls of the courthouse as well as in front of Judge Shahid.” The letter did not disclose what was said.

After Wednesday’s killing, the landlord’s attorneys sent another letter to Shahid, attaching news coverage of Avila’s murder arrest, again asking that all upcoming court appearances be done virtually “due to these circumstances and (our) related safety concerns.”

Emails to the law firm for comment were not immediately returned.

Court papers say Avila was schizophrenic.

In his lawsuit, Avila says he was spending more than $500 a month on over-the-counter insect repellents.

“The persistent bedbug bites necessitate frequent and ongoing medical treatments,” the suit says. “(It’s) not only disruptive of his care, but also indicative of his uninhabitable living condition.”

At the same time, his landlord sued him for not paying more than $11,000 in back rent, which was ultimately paid.

After months of legal wrangling, JSAF Management in May hired an exterminator to take care of the bedbug problem but by then Avila found another issue to complain about: access to the building’s back yard.

In an email sent on June 25, Avila’s court-appointed guardian wrote the management company complaining they had locked the backyard emergency exit, which “appears to be an act of harassment from building workers.”

“We’ve had problems with him for over a year,” a neighbor of Avila’s who only gave her name as Ebony said after her husband, Orlando Nieves, survived being shot in Wednesday’s clash. “(Avila) has the issue where anybody going in the backyard, he feels like it’s his and nobody else in the building can go back there.”

Avila’s case against his landlord is just one of 13 lawsuits he filed against the city and various past landlords since 2016.

And Avila since December had filed five criminal complaints with the NYPD against unnamed neighbors, claiming they had threatened to harm him for making 311 calls about unsanitary conditions in the building.

“You’re a b—h for calling 311,” one of these unnamed neighbors told him during a Jan. 4 argument, according to the complaint. “I’m going to break your face.”

The most recent harassment complaint was on July 20, when he claimed a woman in the building had threatened to “get someone to knock (his) teeth out.” He filed a menacing complaint with the police against the unnamed neighbor, claiming she had threatened him with a pair of scissors.

None of these complaints ended in arrest, police said. Four of them were harassment allegations, violations that needed either to be recorded or witnessed by someone, an NYPD spokesman said.

According to city records, 97 complaints had been made to the city’s 311 system about the College Ave. address, but it was not immediately clear if all of them had been filed by Avila.

Of the 311 calls, seven complaints, which included three for unsanitary conditions, were filed at 2:31 a.m. Monday, two days before the shooting.

Two other complaints, one of which also claimed unsanitary conditions, were filed against the building at 3 a.m. Sunday, city records show.

News 12 Bronx did a story on Avila in 2022 after he complained about a dispute with the landlord of a different rent-controlled apartment in the Bronx over his refrigerator not working for a year. In the past three years, he has sent two-dozen emails to News 12 with story ideas for reporters to pursue, a source at the station said.

No criminal complaints have ever been filed against Avila by building workers or tenants. But slain super Ryan Hines, 37, had told family members he had been clashing with Avila and that the situation led to friction with Hines’ employer. Wednesday was to be Hines’ last day working in the building since he had found a new job he was starting that evening.

Hines was speaking to Nieves, 62, in the hallway when Avila burst out of his apartment and opened fire on them, according to cops and witnesses.

“My husband got hit twice,” Ebony said of Nieves. “(Nieves) was ducking down, and I was pulling him through the door. … The super ran out and [the suspect] chased him outside.”

As Avila continued to shoot Hines as he chased the super down the street a 59-year-old man believed to be homeless was shot in the buttocks, officials said.

Hines was shot in the chest while Nieves was struck in the arm, with the bullet then piercing the side of his chest.

Medics rushed Hines and Nieves to an area hospital, where the super died. The third victim admitted himself to BronxCare Health System.

After the shooting, Avila, who has two documented mental health incidents with the NYPD, hid in his first-floor apartment and reached out to News 12 Bronx, saying he wouldn’t surrender until the outlet sent a camera crew.

“I didn’t mean to do this, but I had to do it because these people were threatening my life,” the suspect told News 12 Bronx when he called the station.

The shooting left Hines’ two adolescent children orphans. Their mother, Ashley McDuffie, was beaten to death by her boyfriend in 2016, a homicide that also made headlines.