An alleged looter capitalizing on the chaos of the George Floyd protests was shot and wounded early Monday in Lower Manhattan — in a turf war with other looters, police sources told The Post.
The opportunist — identified by sources as Ganjel Pepaj, 21 — and a group of friends traveled from The Bronx to join in what started as peaceful protests to demand justice for Floyd, a black man killed May 25 after a white Minnesota cop knelt on his neck, sources said.
But as the scene in SoHo devolved into looting, vandalism and clashes with police late Sunday into early Monday, Pepaj and his pals allegedly decided to take advantage by doing some looting of their own, sources said.
Hopping from smashed storefront to smashed storefront, however, the group kept encountering another band of looters who didn’t appreciate the incursion on their ill-gotten claims, according to sources.
The groups moved to settle the dispute near Spring and Crosby streets around 12:30 a.m. Monday when one of the rival looters pulled out a gun and shot Pepaj in the back, sources said.
Pepaj was taken to an area hospital, and is expected to survive.
No arrests were immediately announced in the attack or the looting that spurred it.