Teen charged with murder in shooting of 16-year-old near NYC high school
A Bronx teen was charged with murder Saturday in the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Angellyh Yambo, a senseless crime with yet another young victim that left the slain girl’s anguished mother asking, “Where are they getting these guns?”
“My baby was an innocent bystander. She was walking home from school. She was a good student, a good girl. She wasn’t in the streets. Our kids aren’t even safe walking from a place where they get their education,” mom Yamely Henriquez, 41, said Saturday.
She said the family just celebrated Yambo’s 16th birthday.
Photos posted to Facebook show a beaming Yambo in a pink gown and tiara standing in front of a display with 16 candles.
“My baby was everything to me. I’m devastated, I’m broken. Half of me is gone,” said the mom, who also has two sons.
Yambo had posted a birthday note to her mom on Facebook last year writing “I’m forever great full to call u my mother I love uu [sic].”
The teen was walking home Friday when she was slain a block from University Prep Charter High School. Two other teens who were also shot, one 16 and one 17, are expected to survive.
The suspect, Jeremiah Ryan, 17, was also hit with charges of attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell announced Saturday.
“It was less than 24 hours ago that this Bronx neighborhood experienced a serious and tragic sense of loss of a young life. An act of violence by an emboldened individual that also wounded two young New Yorkers,” Sewell said at a news conference at the 40th Precinct in the Bronx.
”While Angellyh’s loved ones are devastated, we can pray that this arrest brings them some sense of solace,” the commissioner added.
Henriquez said the arrest “won’t bring my baby back” and that the city had to “stop this violence.”
Several dozen people attended a vigil at the crime scene Saturday night, including one of Yambo’s brothers, who stood with tears in his eyes and was consoled by a group of friends.
“That child was going home, doing what they needed to do and someone interfered with that child’s life and took their life. Enough is enough,” said Gloria Alfinez with Release the Grip, a violence reduction initiative.
Heaven Otero, 16, a classmate of Yambo’s, called her “a very kind person.”
“I’m hurt but I know it’s going to be worse when I see that she’s not in her seat,” said Otero before breaking down in tears.
The shooting left two families “completely destroyed,” NYPD Dep. Chief Timothy McCormack said Saturday.
”Our victim’s family and our shooter’s family. A hard working woman, raising a child that has zero police contact at all and he goes from smoking marijuana to killing somebody,” McCormack said.
Ryan was arguing with about four others when one of the group made a motion as if he was going for a weapon — prompting Ryan to pull his gun and start shooting, a witness told The Post.
Yambo and the other female victim were approximately a half a block away from the shooter, the third victim was a full block away, McCormack said.
He said six shell casings were recovered from the scene.
Homicide detectives and the NYPD crime scene unit executed a search warrant early Saturday at Ryan’s home, and were seen leaving with four large bags of evidence. The teen was identified by investigators who scoured surveillance video.
When police officers went to Ryan’s home around 12:30 a.m. Saturday, he slammed the door on them, sources said.
At the same time, patrol officers who were downstairs saw his hand go out the window and drop a bag with a gun — believed to be an untraceable Polymer80 ghost gun — in it, sources said.
Police haven’t directly tied the ghost gun they recovered to Yambo’s killing.
Yambo’s killing was the latest city shooting involving juvenile victims. Among the others was 12-year-old Kade Lewin, who was shot dead as he sat in a car eating dinner in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, and a 3-year-old girl who was struck while leaving her day care in Brownsville.
Juvenile-justice reform in New York, which raised the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18, has also seen younger shooters charged as adolescent offenders and then trapped in a catch-and-release cycle of justice.
“Teenagers today are war veterans,“ one Brooklyn detective told The Post. “We have been dealing with some of them for three or four years and they know the system today is in their favor. They know that there are no repercussions if they get caught with a gun. They will be sent to Family Court, and that is a joke. They would face more penalties if they want to judge Judy.”
A Bronx Detective pointed out, “because of the new discovery laws they will know within one month how we caught them. Before they would have to wait until they went to trial so they might take a plea, no one takes a plea today.”
McCormack said the case against Ryan wasn’t finished.
”It’s just the beginning. We are still processing crime scenes. We are still doing work with Jeremiah,” he said.
Ryan was not a gang member, but had fallen in with the wrong crowd, sources noted.
Ryan’s grandfather, Ricardo Santiago, 70, told The Post his grandson was a “good kid” who was attending school. He said his daughter called to tell him he had been picked up by police.
”I said ‘What the hell’ when she called,” the grandfather said. “It was so sudden it’s unbelievable. I don’t think he did it. They just got him at the precinct trying to scare him. That’s how the police do things. I’m born and raised in the Bronx. I know.”
The three victims were not friends, and were just walking in close proximity to one another when the bullets started flying, sources said.
One of the surviving victims, who was shot in the leg, is the cousin of Channel 4 reporter Myles Miller, the journalist said in a video posted to Twitter.
He was seen on crutches leaving Lincoln Hospital Saturday afternoon.
“He’s in good spirits. He’ll be alright,” a family member said.
People came to the crime scene Saturday leaving candles, balloons and flowers – one in the sign of a cross with ribbons with a tiara.
“She was too young. I can imagine her celebrating her sweet sixteen birthday partly. I brought the tiara because she was a princess,” Jamie Moralez, 38, said.
A neighbor named Angie came to light a candle and said the situation was a tragedy for all involved.
“A little girl shouldn’t have lost her life. Now (Ryan) has lost his life, too, and he is only 17. He is going to jail forever,” she said. “Her mother lost her daughter and his mother lost her son. Who wins? Nobody!”
Ryan was ordered to be held without bail by Judge Vidya Pappachan as requested by prosecutors during his arraignment in The Bronx on Saturday.
Ryan’s defense attorney Deveraux Cannick conceded to remand “for the time being,” pending future discovery. That decision came even though Ryan has a perfect score for recommended release from the NYC Criminal Justice Agency.
The suspect’s parents attended the arraignment and he told them “I love you” as he left the courtroom. He is scheduled to return to court on April 11.
Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts, Steven Vago, and Dana Kennedy
