A Tennessee college student who was on the Dean’s List in school wasn’t so smart when it came to the streets. He sold dozens of loaded guns to an undercover New York police officer.
Shakor Rodriguez, a 23-year-old Bronx native, now faces a hefty 304 counts, which includes the criminal sale of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon, from two indictments, the Bronx District Attorney’s Office reported.
Rodriguez, aka “Sha,” was attending Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn., but is accused of smuggling firearms into the Big Apple by stashing them in duffle bags and at times transporting them by bus, the New York Post reported.
Authorities say the college student sold 73 guns, and 59 of those were loaded, to an undercover cop between July 17, 2020, and Dec. 22, 2021. He did the crimes all while keeping up a 3.5 GPA or at least for part of that time.
He was one of 2,000 students on the dean’s list for academic achievement for the Fall 2020 semester.
Most of the guns were sold near on Weeks Avenue, which happens to be his old stomping grounds, or on Allen Street in the Lower East Side, prosecutors stated.
Authorities are still looking into how and where Rodriguez obtained the weapons, that he then sold to an undercover for between $1,000 and $1,500 a gun.
Prosecutors say Rodriguez allegedly also hawked more than 40 high-capacity magazines, including multiple “drum” magazines. That’s the same type of ammunition magazine used by Lashawn McNeil to shoot and kill NYPD officers Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora in Harlem last week.
Rodriguez was arrested in late Dec, in what authorities say was part of the more than year-long sting operation, dubbed “Operation Overnight Express.”
“I would not have expected that of him,” said Loretta Cook, a Bronx resident who said she watched Rodriguez “grow up” in the neighborhood.
“He wasn’t a thug, he was respectful,” said Cook, who recognized Rodriguez from a photo and described him as “quiet, low-profile.”
