Brooklyn teenager sentenced for fatal shooting of 15-year-old boy

McLaughlin Park in Downtown Brooklyn. Brooklyn Eagle photo by Mary Frost

DOWNTOWN — Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced that a Fort Greene teenager has been sentenced to 18 years to life in prison for fatally shooting a 15-year-old boy in a Downtown Brooklyn park in broad daylight.

“[The] sentence holds this defendant accountable for taking the life of 15-year-old Unique Smith, an innocent boy who was simply sitting in a park near his school when he was senselessly murdered,” Gonzalez said. “Unique’s family, friends, and community will carry this loss forever, and my heart is with them.”

Gonzalez added that, despite gun violence in Brooklyn being at record lows, one shooting is still too many. “We will not rest until no family has to grieve a loved one lost to gunfire.”

Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Adam Perlmutter. Brooklyn Eagle photo by Wayne Daren Schneiderman

The defendant, Wesley Walker, 19, of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, was sentenced by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Adam Perlmutter to 18 years to life in prison. Walker was convicted of second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon on Aug. 20, 2025, following a jury trial.

According to the evidence, on Sept. 7, 2022, the victim, Unique Smith, was sitting on a bench in McLaughlin Park, in the vicinity of Tillary Street and Jay Street, at around 1:40 p.m. Smith was a student at nearby Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School.

The defendant, who was wearing a mask and was a member of the FNO Woo street gang, along with another masked individual, approached the victim and asked if he was affiliated with a gang. Following a brief argument, the defendant shot the victim once in the stomach.

The victim was rushed to Methodist Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

According to the trial testimony, earlier that day, the defendant had cut class, gone to school at dismissal and recruited several students, including one to act as a lookout, to go to the park, where he displayed a gun and expressed his intent to use it.

The defendant fled the scene and was arrested in Binghamton, New York, on Feb. 1, 2023.

The District Attorney thanked Homicide Paralegal Meghan Brancato and Intelligence Analyst Zoe Feygin of the Digital Evidence Lab for their assistance on the case.

The case was prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Matthew Perry of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau and Senior Assistant District Attorney Lauren Fitton of the District Attorney’s Domestic Violence Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Leila Rosini, Bureau Chief.