A 16-year-old boy was criminally charged with murder for the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Sincere Jazmin, of St. Albans, at a South Jamaica bus stop in March.
The teenager walked into the 103rd Precinct in Jamaica on Tuesday morning and surrendered to police, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation. He was arraigned later in the day in Queens Criminal Court on a complaint charging him with murder in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon for shooting Jazmin once in the chest as they got off a Q83 MTA bus at the corner of Liberty Avenue and 172nd Street just after 2:20 p.m. on Wednesday, March 26.
The shooter, who is also from St. Albans fled the scene in front of Detective Keith L. Williams Park eastbound on Liberty Avenue, Jazmin managed to walk to a bodega a half block away at 171-42 Liberty Ave. The victim, an aspiring rapper, sat down at the front door of the C.Y. Deli Grocery and collapsed as a store worker called 911.
Police from the 103rd Precinct responded to the location and found the younger unconscious and unresponsive.
EMS rushed him to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where he succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead.
Crime scene investigators recovered one shell casing in front of the park. Jazmin was a student at John Bowne High School in Kew Gardens Hills, and he was about a mile north of his home on Sayres Avenue in St. Albans when he was gunned down by the 16-year-old, who has not been identified because he is a minor. According to the charges, the defendant fled New York but returned to Queens before he surrendered at the 103rd Precinct on Tuesday morning.
“As alleged, a 16-year-old male made the devastating choice to settle a disagreement with a gun and now a family of another teen is mourning the tragic loss of their child,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said.
The defendant was arraigned before Queens Criminal Court Judge Glenda Hernandez. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years to life in prison.
“This case is an example of the senseless gun violence that endangers public safety and takes the lives of too many of our children,” Katz said.
