{"id":160773,"date":"2026-03-11T21:28:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T21:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/160773\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T21:28:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T21:28:37","slug":"four-alleged-gang-members-indicted-in-fatal-shooting-of-16-year-old-innocent-bystander-in-queens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/160773\/","title":{"rendered":"Four alleged gang members indicted in fatal shooting of 16-year-old innocent bystander in Queens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"2AE9B170-FDDE-49D0-A708-972CEEA8F7B4\"\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz and NYPD worked together to take down 23 violent gang members. <\/p>\n

Photo by Dean Moses<\/p>\n

Four reputed members and associates of the 007 gang were indicted in Queens in connection with the 2023 shooting death of 16-year-old Claudia Quatey, the borough\u2019s District Attorney Melinda Katz<\/a> announced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The victim was seated in a vehicle directly behind the intended target\u2014a rival gang member\u2014when she was shot in the head and killed in St. Albans in 2023.\n<\/p>\n

The defendants\u2014Messiah Randall, Nicolson Pierrimas and Zaire Rolley\u2014face charges including murder, conspiracy and criminal possession of a weapon.\n<\/p>\n

Randall, 19, and Pierrimas, 20, and Rolley, 21 were arraigned in Queens Supreme Court on March 11 on the indictment charges.\n<\/p>\n

Pointdujour, 19, is currently in custody on another matter and will be arraigned later.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAs alleged, the four defendants acted in concert to plan and carry out the murder of a perceived gang rival when they instead shot and killed 16-year-old Claudia Quatey,\u201d Katz said.\n<\/p>\n

According to the investigation, the incident started when a planned \u201cconfrontation\u201d between two teens led to groups meeting near a park at P.S. 15 on Lucas Street at around 7:30 p.m. on May 10, 2023.<\/p>\n

After the meeting, Quatey and four friends entered a blue Hyundai Venue. She was seated in the rear passenger\u2019s seat, behind a reputed member of the rival TopOpp gang.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seconds after the car drove away, Randall and Pierrimas allegedly fired multiple rounds into the vehicle before the four defendants fled the scene.\n<\/p>\n

Quatey was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she succumbed to a gunshot wound to the head days later.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

The three indicted defendants were remanded with their next court dates set on March 16 for Randall and Pierrimas and April 15 for Rolley.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will hold the defendants accountable for this senseless tragedy and continue to work with our law-enforcement partners to dismantle gangs in this borough,\u201d Katz said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If convicted on all charges, the defendants face a potential sentence of up to 25 years to life in prison.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Crackdown on gangs in Queens<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s indictment was only the latest effort to crack down on gang violence in Queens.\n<\/p>\n

A year-long probe<\/a> into the Bad-Co Ballout Gang and affiliated Crips sets resulted in 32 alleged gang members getting indicted on murder, attempted murder and conspiracy charges in November 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The defendants were accused of at least 13 shootings since 2021, including three homicides and multiple attacks involving teenagers and bystanders.\n<\/p>\n

Queens officials referred to the sting, dubbed Operation Shadyville, as the largest single gang takedown in the borough\u2019s district attorney\u2019s office.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz and NYPD worked together to take down 23 violent gang members. Photo by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[303,35074,9,24,63,646,122,56861,124,123,66343],"class_list":["post-160773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-crime","tag-gang-violence-in-nyc","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-police-and-fire","tag-queens","tag-queens-da-melinda-katz","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-queens-gangs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}