A teenager was indicted Friday for the fatal shooting of a 29-year-old man right near the Bronx courthouse, the Bronx district attorney announced.
Jayden Baez, 15, was indicted on charges of murder, attempted murder, criminal possession of a weapon and assault for the November killing of Jerron Grant, 29, across the street from the Bronx County Hall of Justice.
“The defendant, only 15 years old, is allegedly responsible for multiple incidents of gun violence last fall,” Bronx DA Darcel Clark said. “He allegedly brazenly fired shots right near the courthouse on the afternoon before Thanksgiving, killing a man and causing fear among the passersby.”
Baez is accused of firing multiple shots at Grant, striking him in the torso, on Nov. 27 around 2:42 p.m., near E. 161st St. and Morris Ave. in the South Bronx. Grant was rushed to Lincoln Hospital where he died later that day.
Cops who were on patrol saw the shooting and chased the youth as he took off and fled into a nearby building on 158th St. Officers arrested Baez near the roof landing inside the building.
A .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol was recovered on the ground where Baez crouched on a ledge.
“I heard at least six shots,” a 28-year-old woman told the Daily News at the time of the shooting. “Me and my co-worker just stayed here, we didn’t go outside. … It’s crazy. It was daytime.”
The Bronx DA’s Office additionally linked Baez to another shooting a week before, on Nov. 20, of a 65-year-old woman. In that incident, the youth allegedly passed a gun to Ley Baio, 17, inside a Bronx building at E. 161st St. and Morris Ave. Baio then rode a Citi Bike with an unidentified male to E. 149th St. and Jackson Ave. in Mott Haven, where Baio gave the gun to the sidekick, who fired multiple gunshots toward a crowd of people, striking the elderly woman in the leg.
The third suspect in the Nov. 20 incident is still being sought by police.
Baez is also linked to a third shooting, a month earlier, on Oct. 14, when he allegedly fired the same gun used in the previous two incidents, this time at a crowd of people on E. 143rd St. and Morris Ave. in Mott Haven. Five bullet-shell casings recovered at the scene were linked to the gun used in the two earlier shootings, according to the DA.