A 20-year-old gang member was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison Friday for a Lower East Side murder a prosecutor said sparked off a chain of violence that resulted in two more grisly deaths and ruined multiple lives “based on nothing.”
Zymir Humphrey received the agreed-upon term after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in November for fatally shooting Brandon Atkinson in the back of the head at a deli on Ave. D near E. Third St. on May 15, 2022.
Atkinson’s killing stemmed from tensions between two Lower East Side gangs separated by a small “hill” in the road on Grand St. near Madison St. Humphrey was a member of Up The Hill, and Atkinson’s brothers were members of Down The Hill, the Daily News previously reported.
Humphrey targeted Atkinson after Nikki Huang, a 23-year-old woman who had served food to members of both crews at her family’s Chinese restaurant, Wa Lung Kitchen, on the gangs’ dividing line, was mugged of her handbag and reported it to members of Up The Hill.
Brandon Atkinson’s murder sparked off a chain of violence ending in the killings of Nikki Huang, 23, and Jesse Parrilla, 22. (pictured) (Obtained by Daily News)
In retaliation for Atkinson’s killing, members of Down The Hill kidnapped Huang, 23, and a friend who she’d been hanging out with that night, Jesse Parrilla, 35, according to authorities. Both were found burned beyond recognition in a car by the Pelham Split Rock Golf Course in the Bronx the next day.
Police previously said Huang and her friend, killed as collateral damage, were shot before they were torched — so thoroughly that Parrilla had to be identified through dental records.
Three suspects have been charged in connection to Huang and Parrilla’s killings, and authorities are still searching for a fourth. Three other people were shot throughout the chaotic night and survived.
Humphrey was located around a month after Atkinson’s killing near Shasta Lane in Martinsburg, W. Virginia by the U.S. Marshals Mountain State Fugitive Task Force, taken into custody, and extradited to New York.
In court Friday, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Mercer said Atkinson, 21, had nothing to do with the robbery of Huang’s handbag.
He said the case illuminated the “senselessness” of gang violence, remarking on “the insanity of it all and how many young lives were wasted based on nothing.”
Humphrey, wearing a beige prison outfit, was seen smiling in court and craning his neck to see who was seated in the mostly empty gallery. He expressed no remorse for Atkinson’s killing but apologized to the families of Huang and Parrilla.
“I would like to apologize to Nikki Huang’s family because in all reality, she didn’t have anything to do with [any] of this,” Humphrey said. “Jesse’s family also.”
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Abraham Clott told Humphrey the severity of the life term “speaks for itself.” He denied a request from his attorney to waive a court surcharge fee based on his inability to pay, saying Humphrey was “able bodied” and could work to pay it off in prison.
Brandon Atkinson (inset) was fatally shot on E. 3rd St. and Avenue D on May 15, 2022. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for NY Daily News; Obtained by Daily News)
“Zymir Humphrey shot and killed Brandon Atkinson in a cruel and vicious act of gun violence,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. “Senseless cycles of retribution continue to fuel gun violence that destabilizes our communities and, far too often, results in the deaths of young New Yorkers. “
Before leaving the courtroom to head upstate to begin his term, Humphrey shouted to an associate to “smoke that weed.”