SoHo hotel murder suspect's arrest caught on police body-worn camera
NEW YORK (PIX11) --- Authorities released bodycam footage of the moment the SoHo hotel murder suspect was cornered and arrested in an Arizona parking garage last week.
Raad Almansoori, 26, was allegedly driving a stolen silver car through a mall parking garage when he was surrounded by cop cars and officers pointing their weapons at him before they handcuffed him, according to the Facebook video posted by the Surprise Police Department in Arizona. The alleged killer tried to drive away, authorities said in the clip.
The disheveled suspect, dressed in a ripped t-shirt and jeans, is then escorted to a police vehicle and told to stand facing the car, the short clip showed. Almansoori does not speak in the footage.
Almansoori was arrested in Arizona after allegedly stabbing two women and implicating himself in the death of a Queens woman at the SoHo 54 Hotel at 54 Watts St. in Lower Manhattan earlier this month, authorities said.
Almansoori told the officers he was wanted for a homicide in New York and allegedly told them to “Google SoHo 54 hotel,” according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. Authorities were attempting to extradite the suspect to New York City but Maricopa County Prosecutor Rachel Mitchell said last week it would be safer to keep him in Arizona given the Big Apple's lenient bail laws. Almansoori is being held without bail in Arizona, officials said.
“Having observed the treatment of violent criminals in the New York area by Manhattan DA there Alvin Bragg, I think it’s safer to keep here and to keep him in custody so that he cannot be out doing this to individuals either in our state or county or anywhere in the United States,” Mitchell said.
Bragg’s office accused Mitchell of playing political games with a murder investigation while citing the decrease in murders and shootings in New York City, according to spokesperson Emily Tuttle.
“New York’s murder rate is less than half that of Phoenix, Arizona, because of the hard work of the NYPD and all of our law enforcement partners. It is a slap in the face to them and to the victim in our case to refuse to allow us to seek justice and full accountability for a New Yorker’s death,” Tuttle said.
Almansoori allegedly confessed to the gruesome killing of Denisse Oleas-Arancibia, 38, during an interrogation, Arizona police officials said. The suspect allegedly bludgeoned the sex worker to death with an iron after the two fought inside room 1109 at the hotel, authorities said.
A hotel employee discovered the victim’s body in the room on the morning of Feb. 8, police said. The victim had pieces of plastic in her head from a bloody iron, which was found near her body, police said. She died of blunt force trauma, officials said.
Almansoori allegedly left his bloody pants in the room and walked out of the hotel in the victim’s leggings before hopping on a plane from Newark Liberty International Airport to Arizona, police said. The suspect then allegedly carjacked a woman at knifepoint in Phoenix and stabbed a McDonald’s worker several times in the restaurant bathroom over the weekend, authorities said. Both victims were stabbed multiple times, police said.
The suspect has an extensive arrest history in several states, including an alleged kidnapping and a sexual assault in April 2023 in Florida, officials said. Authorities believe there may be more victims in other states and have reached out to the FBI for assistance.
Mira Wassef is a digital reporter who has covered news and sports in the New York City area for more than a decade. She joined PIX11 News in 2022. See more of her work here.