A Harlem man who was shot and killed in a housing complex courtyard had a bright mind and a loving home that were not enough to keep him away from the streets, his one-time foster mother told the News.
Hamid Thomas, 32, was raised by a loving Bronx family, but no matter how hard they tried to make him feel at home, Thomas always found his way back to the streets of Harlem — and the trouble that came with it, said his foster mom, Adrienne Carroll.
Cops said Thomas was shot and killed Monday afternoon as he sat on a bench behind the Drew Hamilton Houses, where a gunman also wounded a woman trying to escape the gunfire. EMS transported the victims to Harlem Hospital, where Thomas was pronounced dead. The wounded woman was in stable condition.
The shooter remained at large. A motive behind the killing wasn’t immediately divulged.
Carroll said she was heartbroken over Thomas’ death. But not completely surprised.
“We really cared for him, but every time we would open up the home he would go AWOL and we’d have to call the police and make a report and we’d find out he was hanging out in Harlem,” Carroll said.
“He just lived to be in the street.”
Carroll said Thomas was born in Harlem, and came to live with her family when he turned 13 after his mother lost custody. She said Thomas stayed with them until he turned 18 and aged out of the foster care system.
Carroll said she worked to offer Thomas a stable upbringing in a Clason Point duplex, but that he routinely ran away from home, forcing his foster mother to file missing person reports that always lead police to his favorite hangouts.
“That was the closest relationship I had with any foster children,” Carroll said. “I had 20 children. My son even took to him. He was a very smart kid. He just liked to be in the street. Very smart.”
Kerry Burke/New York Daily News
NYPD investigate after a 30-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman were shot in the rear of NYCHA’s Drew Hamilton Houses on Frederick Douglass Blvd. on Monday, July 14, 2025. (Kerry Burke/New York Daily News)
She said Thomas had artistic skill that he squandered in favor of hanging out.
Carroll recalled once driving through Harlem looking for her wayward foster son only to find him on the side of the road fixing a friend’s bicycle.
“One time I had to drive to Harlem and he was parked by a hydrant fixing somebody’s bike. I was like, ‘This kid.’”
Sometime after leaving Carroll’s home for good, Thomas ran into legal trouble.
Cops said Thomas was arrested for attempted murder, assault and reckless endangerment in 2013 after he allegedly fired into a crowd and hit a woman in the foot. He was convicted of first-degree assault a year later and was sentenced to eight years in prison.
He was ultimately paroled in 2020 and his parole ended in 2023, according to state Department of Corrections records.
While in prison, Carroll said, Thomas pursued a GED and practiced his art.
At one point she received a large package from him, likely containing his art, which she never opened.
After learning of Thomas’ death, Carroll said she pulled the package Thomas had sent from jail from her closet, but found herself unable to open it, saying she was “frozen and numb.”
