In July, 17-year-old Kamau Chandler died after being shot twice in the head and once in the head in Brooklyn. Now, police have announced they made an arrest.
Claude Ward, 18, was charged with murder and criminal possession weapon for the July 27th killing. At the time, police said that Kamau and his friends had been walking down Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant when they were approached by two people who started arguing with them. One of them then shot Kamau.
According to NBC New York, "Investigators said the shooting stemmed from an altercation inside a nightclub, where Ward and Chandler apparently exchanged threatening looks." And a friend of Kamau's told WABC 7, "They don't know each other from anywhere else in the world, two people just cross each other's paths. Somebody got killed that night over nothing."
Police released surveillance footage of two persons suspected in the shooting, and eyewitnesses apparently linked Ward to the crime. The victim's sister praised the police, "I'm happy they worked hard and long to find this man. I'm happy."
Violent crime in Bedford-Stuyvesant has dropped since last year, but Kamau's and other youths' death in the neighborhood have raised concerns from the police and communities. One woman said during an NYPD BBQ, "I have a bullet hole in my window. My mother's in a wheelchair. She's left the apartment twice in three years because she's too afraid. There's too much crime around here, too much murdering and shooting."
