The NYPD has arrested a Brooklyn teen who police say shot and killed a 15-year-old boy at a southeast Queens playground earlier this month.
Zahir Davis, 18, has been charged with murder in the death of 15-year-old Jaden Pierre of South Richmond Hill, officials say. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said on X that Davis fled to Jamaica after the shooting, but was arrested by detectives assigned to the U.S. Marshals Regional Fugitive Task Force as soon as he landed back in New York City Friday night.
Police have previously said that early on the evening of April 16, officers responded to a 911 call about a shooting near Merrick and Baisley boulevards and found Pierre at a playground with a gunshot wound to his chest. He was pronounced dead shortly afterward at Jamaica Hospital.
The NYPD described the incident on social media as a “horrific act of violence.” Former Mayor Eric Adams soon after posted a video that appears to show a group cornering and beating Pierre. In the moments leading up to the shooting, one of the people throws Pierre to the ground, but he regains his footing. A crowd surrounding the teens quickly disperses following gunshots.
“When you see that video as many New Yorkers have, you feel a sense of heartbreak at the fact that this has happened to a young person in our city,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani told WNYC’s Brigid Bergin during the station’s “Mamdani’s First 100 Days: Lessons from La Guardia” discussion earlier this week.
Pierre is at least the seventh teen to die of gun violence in the city so far this year, according to reports compiled by Gothamist. But the NYPD says overall, the city has experienced record-low murders and shooting incidents in the first three months of the year.
“No matter how many statistics I can rattle off to you about what this first quarter looks like, we still see acts of violence of this nature,” Mamdani said at the WNYC event.
