Former Mayor Eric Adams on Friday posted alarming video to social media showing teenager Jaden Pierre being beaten and fatally shot at point-blank range in a Queens playground.
The 15-year-old victim was shot in the chest inside the Nautilus Playground at Roy Wilkins Park near Baisley and Merrick Blvds. in South Jamaica around 6:16 p.m. on Thursday, according to police.
The cell-phone video Adams posted to X shows Pierre being beaten by a group of teens who have him cornered, with his back against a fence near the park’s comfort station. At least three rival teens can be seen repeatedly punching and kicking Pierre as he holds his hands over his head, trying to ward off the blows, the video shows.
At one point, one of his attackers grab’s Pierre’s hoodie and throws him to the ground. He quickly regains his feet but the teens continue to pummel Pierre until gunfire rings out. The youth suddenly drops to the ground as the crowd scatters.
The NYPD released images Friday of the suspected shooter, including one pulled from the cell-phone footage released by the former mayor.
“A 15-year-old kid was beaten and shot to death at a Southeast Queens playground yesterday. And somehow this isn’t the top story,” Adams said in his post. “Credit to AG Letitia James & BP Richards for speaking up. Where is everyone else, including @NYCMayor Mamdani?”
Cops believe Pierre went to the park to participate in a water-balloon fight planned for earlier that day.
A witness spotted relatives of the slain teen arrive at the scene shortly after the shooting.
“His (aunt) ran up. She was leaning over the body. She was screaming, ‘My baby! My baby!’” said Keith Suggs, 62. “Then the police arrived and said, ‘Don’t touch the body,’ and they moved her away.”
“A man ran over after her, and the police grabbed him and took him to the side to talk to him,” he added.
Suggs said he saw dozens of teens “milling around” the scene with their phones out.
“A massive amount of kids had their phones out filming,” he said. “It’s a terrible tragedy. It happened in the park in the middle of the day. It’s sick.”
Medics rushed the boy to Jamaica Hospital, but he couldn’t be saved.
“It’s such a tragic situation when any child is lost to gun violence, especially Jayden,” the victim’s aunt, who did not give her name, told the Daily News at the hospital. “He was a wonderful child. A very caring and loving boy.”
Multiple witnesses told The News they heard gunfire break out near the basketball courts inside the playground.
“I heard a shot go off,” said AJ, 19, who was playing basketball when the shooting occurred. “I came running to see if he was all right, and I saw a kid dead on the ground. He was lying there dead.”
“I knew him from playing basketball,” AJ added. “He was a good kid.”
The boy fell near the park’s comfort station, witnesses said.
“I saw the commotion,” a man, who was at a laundromat across the street when the shots were fired, told The News. “The police were just arriving. I ran over to make sure my kids were all right, and I saw the kid lying there by the bathroom. He wasn’t moving. He was dead.”
The teen’s murder stunned parkgoers.
“That’s really sad,” Herman Belvin, 60, said at Roy Wilkins Park. “When my kids were younger, I used to bring them to this park. We need the cops to be present. It’s a very active park.”
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
