A 14-year-old boy has been charged with murder after allegedly stabbing a 13-year-old middle school student to death on a Staten Island bus on Friday.
Syles Ular was stabbed multiple times just after 2.30pm as the MTA bus was passing Hyland Boulevard near Littlefield Avenue in Eltingville, the NYPD said in a statement.
Officers transported him to Staten Island University Hospital in Prince’s Bay where he was pronounced dead, police said.
Witnesses said another boy had boarded the bus and began arguing with the suspect shortly before the stabbing, according to CBS News.
“A knife is produced, and gang signs were being shown back and forth,” NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell told reporters.
Mr Chell said the teenage suspect ran off several blocks from the scene before he was apprehended by several witnesses including a retired NYPD detective who pursued him.
He said police believe the killing was gang-related, and called it a “tragic, tragic homicide”.
Both boys attended the nearby Elias Bernstein Intermediate School 7, he said.
An official from the New York City Transit Department of Subways told Staten Island Live that the stabbing was captured by bus surveillance cameras.
The 14-year-old was arrested on Friday night and charged with murder, manslaughter, and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.
His aunt Ladrina Sheffield told the New York Daily News he was the “sweetest kid”.
“His life should not have been taken this way. This is just senseless. I can’t believe my baby is gone,” Ms Sheffield said.
