FORT GREENE, Brooklyn (PIX11) — A 16-year-old is accused of fatally shooting his stepdad in a Brooklyn NYCHA apartment during a fight over smoking weed near the teen’s pregnant mother, police said.
The boy was arrested Tuesday for allegedly killing 43-year-old Jamel Davis inside the Walt Whitman Houses at 75 Cumberland Walk in Fort Greene just before 11 a.m. on April 12, according to the NYPD.
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The teen and his 3-month-pregnant mom were arguing about him smoking weed before Davis intervened, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.
The fight quickly escalated, and the boy went to his room and got his gun out of a shoebox before shooting the stepdad in the chest and arm, Kenny said.
Davis was rushed to the hospital but could not be saved.
The teen fled and was picked up Tuesday in the Bronx, police said. It was unclear if he had the gun.
“He had a backpack with all his belongings in it, and he looked very disheveled, like he’s been living out on the street,” Kenny said at a Tuesday press briefing.
The boy was charged with murder and criminal possession of a loaded firearm, police said. The teen has prior arrests for domestic incidents with his mother.
“Just a family dispute over smoking weed, in front of his pregnant mother,” Kenny said.
Mira Wassef is an award-winning reporter who has covered news and sports in the NYC area for more than a decade. She joined the PIX11 News digital team in 2022. See more of her work here.
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