Three charged in subway killing of teen

Three men have been charged with gang assault and murder in the gunning down and stabbing of a Mexican teen at an Astoria train station over Labor Day weekend.
Jose Alvarez and Nicholas Reyes, both 20 and of the Bronx, and Emanuel Ramirez-Hernandez, 23 and homeless, now face 25 years to life behind bars for killing 19-year-old Jose Sierra. The men were held without bail and are due back in court on Friday, September 21.
“The defendants are accused of acting with wolf pack mentality in attacking and killing a hardworking teenage immigrant as he stood on the crowded elevated platform of a Queens subway station in the dark pre-dawn hours of a holiday ironically intended to honor the workers of our country,” said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown. “Their alleged actions were violent and ruthless and the charges against them will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Brown charged that the trio beat, stabbed and shot Sierra in the head at 1 a.m. on Labor Day. At the time, Sierra was standing on the southbound side of the N-train platform at 31st Street and Broadway.
After he was attacked, Sierra reportedly stumbled and collapsed in front of a token booth clerk as several men fled the scene. Police are investigating whether anyone else was involved.
Meanwhile Alvarez, Reyes, and Ramirez-Hernandez have been charged with murder, gang assault, and criminal possession of a weapon.
A spokesperson for the District Attorney explained that a first-degree assault charge is brought against a suspect for an attack with a deadly weapon, with intent to disfigure or with depraved indifference. A first-degree gang assault involves two or more perpetrators acting in concert with one another - whether or not they are actually members of an established gang.