18-year-old arrested after teen killed in Queens subway shooting
NEW YORK - An 18-year-old has been arrested for the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old boy on a subway train in Queens on Friday afternoon.
The NYPD announced Saturday that Keyondre Russell of Queens was arrested and charged with murder in the death of 15-year-old Jayjon Burnett. He also faces a weapons charge.
According to the authorities, the shooting took place just after 3:40 p.m. Friday afternoon at the Mott Avenue Subway Station in Far Rockaway.
Authorities say two groups of teens were on a southbound A train when they got into a verbal dispute.
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The argument quickly escalated, and a single shot was fired that struck Jayjon Burnett in the chest.
Once the train pulled into the last stop, a good Samaritan carried the victim out of the train and two transit officers patrolling the platform at the time rendered aid.
The boy was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
A GoFundMe been set up in Burnett's memory:
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This is the fourth murder inside the city's mass transit system in the past two weeks and the eighth so far this year.
Last week, a man died after being stabbed to death inside a Bronx subway station.
Just a few days before that, the police arrested Alvin Charles, 43, and charged him with murder for allegedly killing Tommy Bailey with a knife after a dispute on a subway train on September 30.
Despite the deployment of more than 1,000 more police officers in the system since the pandemic began, a survey released last month by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority found 70% of riders felt there were too few officers in the system. Barely more than 50% said they felt safe or very safe on trains or in stations.
"We obviously have work to do," New York City Transit President Richard Davey said Friday. "We’ve got to stop this."
NYPD Chief of Transit Jason Wilcox said arrests have been made in all seven of the previous killings this year.
Last month, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the MTA would put cameras on all of its nearly 6,400 subway cars to rebuild riders’ faith in the system’s safety. The project is expected to take three years to complete.
New York City’s subway system already has more than 10,000 existing security cameras in its 472 stations.
With the Associated Press.