One of the five young men accused in the deadly shooting during a gang-fueled clash on Labor Day in the Bronx leaned out his car window and tried to take a shot at pursuing police before the stolen getaway vehicle crashed into another car, police sources said Friday.
Four of the five suspects, including a 16-year-old boy, opened fire on the crowd on Allerton Ave. near White Plains Road in Allerton at about 7:30 p.m., killing Jamari Henry and wounding four others. The fifth was driving the getaway car.
The killer quartet jumped into the stolen Honda and sped off, but cops were already hot on their heels, Bronx Assistant District Attorney Burim Namani said during the 16-year-old’s arraignment on Thursday.
“This incident was also witnessed by two uniformed members of the police department who saw the shooting,” Namani said. “They continued chasing the car. Other marked NYPD cards joined the chase.”
Courtesy of Shantay Connor
Jamari Henry (pictured) died after he and four other men were shot on Allerton Ave. near White Plains Road in the Bronx on Monday, Sept. 1, 2025. (Photo courtesy of Shantay Connor)
During the pursuit, one of the suspects leaned out the window with a gun in his hand and aimed it at the officers, a police source with knowledge of the case said.
He never got a shot off because a second later, the Honda slammed into another car at the corner of Arnow and Hone Aves., about a half a mile away from the shooting, a police source said.
“The defendant’s car crashed into another vehicle, during which time one of the co-defendants was ejected from the car,” Namani said. “That person is in the hospital.”
Medics rushed all five shooting victims to Jacobi Medical Center, where Henry, 25, died from multiple gunshot wounds to his chest and body. The four other victims all suffered wounds to their arms and legs and are expected to recover.
Cops took Heron Martin, 21, Shamir Murray, 19, Kai Oulai, 19, and Jose Gomez, 18, and a 16-year-old boy at the crash scene. The youngest teen’s name is being withheld because of his age.
Detectives charged the five suspects with murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, weapons possession and reckless endangerment. All of the defendants were ordered held without bail during their arraignments Thursday.
At the 16-year-old boy’s arraignment, which was held in Bronx Criminal Court’s Youth Part, Namani identified him as one of the shooters. The rail thin teen continued to look back at his crying mother in the gallery.
“Jesus! Jesus!” the mother was heard screaming in the corridor after the brief proceeding.
The teen, Namani said, was “facing a life sentence.”
Four firearms were “recovered from either the car or outside of the car,” the Assistant District Attorney said.
The shooting was part of an ongoing gang beef believed to be linked to control of the illegal marijuana trade in the area, a police source said.
It was not immediately clear if the man killed, Henry, had ties to either warring gang. His family believes he must have been an unintended target. He had planned to meet up with his mother to do laundry together that day.
“It’s like a nightmare that I’m waking up from,” his distraught grandmother Vanessa Connor told the Daily News Tuesday. “He’s my first grandkid. I gave him his first car. I gave him his first phone.”
Two of the alleged killers, Oulai and Martin, were previously arrested on a gun-possession charge on Jan 10, 2024, after they were allegedly caught in a car with a gun. Oulai was freed after posting $5,000 bail while Martin was released on his own recognizance.
Oulai was awaiting sentencing on the same charge after pleading guilty to gun possession on Aug. 5 and was expected to be sentenced on Sept. 30, sources said. Oulai pleaded guilty with the understanding he would get five years’ probation.
Martin pleaded not guilty, and his next court appearance was also set for Sept. 30.
The bloodshed comes the week after Mayor Adams vowed to send more than 1,000 cops to the Bronx to tamp down a surge of violent crime in the borough.
On Wednesday, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the officers would be placed on footposts “on the streets and at the times” where violence has occurred in the past.
“It’s our expectation that those officers will quell some of the violence that has happened there over the last two weeks,” Tisch said on PIX11 News.
The Bronx has had more shootings so far this year than in Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island combined. The Bronx also leads the city with 69 murders this year, accounting for a third of the 206 murders that have happened across the five boroughs.
Despite the uptick in violence, Tisch said Bronx shootings in August were down 20% compared with last August.
Most of the gun violence across the city has been linked to gang activity, Tisch said.
“The mayor has wanted us to go after gangs and guns, and we’ve done that in a big, historic way [this year],” said Tisch.
