A 16-year-old suspected of fatally shooting a 13-year-old boy on his way to school during a gang beef surrendered to police Friday, officials said.
The 16-year-old boy turned himself in at the 105th Precinct station house in Queens Village in the killing of Sanjay Samuel on Monday morning, cops said. Criminal charges weren’t immediately filed. The Daily News is not releasing the teen’s name because of his age.
Cops on Thursday released images of the shooter in the hopes someone recognizes him. NYPD detectives were working with an attorney to broker the teen’s surrender, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Thursday.
Investigators learned that Sanjay on social media identified himself as a gang member affiliated with the Bloods.
“Based just off of (Sanjay’s) social media posts, he has some affiliation or association with SSM, which he posts about quite frequently,” Kenny said of the victim. SSM is a Bloods set known as “Sex, Money, Murder,” Kenny said.
The motive for the killing of Sanjay “is going to be gang,” the Chief of Detectives added, noting that Sanjay has never been arrested and is not in the NYPD gang database.
“(The gang connection) is based just off his own social media posts, where he refers to himself as Jay Twogunzz,” Kenny said.
The alleged shooter is also linked to the Bloods, cops said.
Sanjay was with classmates from Martin Van Buren outside the Dunkin Donuts on Springfield and Linden Blvds. in Cambria Heights about 8:20 a.m. on Monday when the killer approached them on a Razor scooter, police said. The suspect attends the Campus Magnet High School nearby the scene, police say.
“(Sanjay and his friends) appear to be aware of the kid and have had interactions with him in the past,” Kenny said. The victim and his friends immediately begin arguing with the rival teen, according to video recovered by police.
The killer is caught on surveillance camera pulling a gun on the group, sending them scattering. He rolls away on his scooter but comes back a few minutes later and begins fighting with Sanjay, who was still outside the donut shop.
“There’s a physical fight with the victim throwing punches and a shot is fired,” Kenny said.
Sanjay was rushed to the hospital, where he died two days later.
After shooting Sanjay, the teen gunman was recorded on the dash camera of a good Samaritan who chased after him, Kenny said.
“(The shooter is) running on Nashville Blvd. and runs past the good Samaritan, who tries to grab him,” Kenny said. “The good Samaritan then tries to follow him in his car and he pulls along the shooter and asks him to surrender. He says ‘No.’”
“The perpetrator asks (the good Samaritan) for a ride and he says ‘No,’ but he asks the teen ‘Can I have your sweatshirt?’ and the perpetrator gives the good Samaritan his sweatshirt,” Kenny continued.
The sweatshirt, which the good Samaritan handed to cops, helped investigators identify the suspect,
Sanjay’s father, Theophilus Samuel, disputed the NYPD’s assessment that his son was in a gang. The family had been keeping track of the teen’s movements and the teen didn’t have enough free time to be hanging out on the street, he said.
Over the summer, Sanjay was staying in Connecticut with his uncle and was on a strict schedule one school started up.
“I have no kind of suspicion of anything like that,” he said about his son’s alleged gang affiliations.
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