Boy, 15, busted for fatally shooting 16-year-old on Harlem street: NYPD
The teen suspect, who is not being named because of his age, opened fire on 16-year-old Clarence Jones near the corner W. 124th St. and Lenox Ave. about 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 24, cops said.
A 15-year-old boy has been arrested for fatally shooting another teen in Harlem.
The teenage suspect, who is not being named because of his age, opened fire on Clarence Jones, 16, near the corner W. 124th St. and Lenox Ave. about 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 24, cops said.
Jones was hit in the torso and was rushed to Harlem Hospital, where he died. He was one of five teens killed in the city within five days last week, police said.
A pair of gunmen on Razor scooters opened fire on Jones, witnesses told police.
A woman who happened to be on the block when the murder took place ran over after she heard the gunshots and saw Jones and the suspects afterward.
“I was under the scaffolding, and two guys rode by on scooters,” said the 50-year-old woman, who did not provide her name. “They was all dressed in all black — hoodies, masks, everything.”
“CJ — everybody called him CJ — was lying there on his back by the bank. He was shot,” the witness said. “The guys who did it was gone.
In the wake of the shooting, investigators identified the 15-year-old boy as a suspect in Jones’ death, police sources said. He was grabbed by cops patrolling in Harlem Thursday night and charged with murder in the second degree.
The teen’s arraignment was pending in Manhattan Criminal Court Friday.
Jones was about nine blocks from home when he was gunned down, according to cops.
Police have yet to disclose a motive for the killing, but the victim was on probation for a case involving at least one robbery in which it’s believed he displayed a gun, and was a suspect in another armed robbery that took place in 2023, two blocks from his home.
In that latter case, in which nobody has been arrested, four crooks entered a store, jumped over the security glass and removed currency from the cash register, with one of the robbers brandishing a gun.
Jones had numerous other prior arrests, police said.
“We don’t know what happened. We don’t know about target. We know somebody killed our nephew. They just took his life senselessly. He was only 16,” said Desiree Murray, 59, who identified herself as a paternal aunt and lives in the close-knit apartment building where Clarence lived with his father.
Clarence’s aunt said the teen had gotten caught up with a bad crowd but had goals for a different life.
“He was a good kid,” Murray said. “Kids get into stuff. Kids do stuff. But overall he was a sweetheart.”
During the shooting, a stray bullet blasted through the window of a passing Toyota Camry, hitting the 51-year-old livery driver’s headrest.
The driver continued to W. 116th St., where he called police. He suffered an ear injury but it wasn’t clear if he was grazed by the stray slug, struck by breaking glass or hurt some other way as he dodged the bullet, cops said.
The driver was treated at Mount Sinai West.
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