A 19-year-old male from Kew Gardens Hills died Thursday morning, three days after he was shot in the head by two gunmen at the Pomonok Houses NYCHA complex just a couple of blocks away from his home on 71st Avenue.
Police from the 107th Precinct in Fresh Meadows reported that during the early morning hours of Mar. 5, a black Nissan Pathfinder stopped in front of 67-20 Parsons Blvd. and two men exited the vehicle while the driver remained behind the wheel. At 2:03 a.m., one of the perpetrators pulled out a handgun and fired the shot that struck Jonathan Mendez in the head before getting back into the vehicle, police said. The driver of the Pathfinder sped away from the crime scene westbound on Jewel Avenue towards Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
Officers from the 107th Precinct and PSA 9 arrived to find Mendez lying on the roadway. EMS responded and rushed Mendez to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens where he was listed in critical condition. Mendez succumbed to his injury on Thursday morning and was pronounced dead. The three suspects remain at large.
The NYPD released surveillance images that show the two men standing outside the Pathfinder just before the fatal shot was fired and the suspects are described as having dark complexions and were last seen wearing dark-colored clothing.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) @NYPDTips. All calls and messages are kept confidential.
The fatal shooting was the first homicide of the year reported by the 107th Precinct which had one murder at the same point last year, according to the most recent CompStat report.
