Suspect in fatal shooting of Queens high school senior charged with gun possession, NYPD says
A teenager suspected of gunning down an 18-year-old Queens high school senior has been charged with weapons possession, cops said Friday.
NYPD detectives are now trying to determine whether the .9 mm Ruger found on 18-year-old Michael Raly was the weapon used to kill victim Mark Greene on Thursday afternoon.
Greene was waiting for a Q20 bus at the intersection of 77th Road and Main St. in Kew Gardens Hills when someone fired multiple shots at him.
Cops apprehended Raly, an alleged member of the Crips, and another suspect on Union Turnpike, about four blocks from the shooting.
Investigators charged Raly with criminal possession of a weapon. His arraignment in Queens Criminal Court was pending Friday.
He hasn’t been charged in Greene’s death, cops said. The teen Raly was arrested with was also not charged, cops said.
Greene’s half-brother, Theo Jones, learned about his sibling’s death as he was changing after basketball practice at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School, five miles away from where the shooting took place.
“I had to get the kids out of the locker room because the school closes at 7 p.m., but eight or nine of the kids come out of the locker room looking upset. That’s when I knew something was up,” longtime Cardozo High School basketball Coach Ron Naclerio told the Daily News.
“‘You don’t want to go in there, coach,’” one student told Naclerio. “‘Theo just learned that his brother got shot.’”
“I went in and I saw him still dressed in his gym attire, bawling,” Naclerio said. “A few seconds later, he told me that his brother got shot and killed.”
Naclerio comforted the junior, who had just started playing with the varsity team, and put him in an Uber so he could get home.
“We spoke every half hour or hour through the night,” Naclerio said. “I wanted to make sure he was all right.”
Naclerio said he never met Greene, but knew all about the harrowing ripple effects a single gunshot can have.
Over the last few years a handful of Cardozo students and their relatives have fallen victim to gun violence, said the coach.
“I’m getting tired of it,” he said.
Greene was a block away from North Queens Community High School, when he was shot, witnesses said.
The dismissal bell had rung and students were filing out the door when the sound of gunfire sent everyone scrambling back inside.
Greene was shot multiple times and found face down on the pavement. EMS rushed him to Jamaica Hospital, but he could not be saved.
“He fell right in front of the bus stop,” classmate Rocio Hernandez, 17, told The News. “We were waiting for the bus when the shots started.”
Greene’s relatives were too grief-stricken to talk to a reporter when reached Friday.
A motive for the slaying was not immediately disclosed.
Greene had no criminal record, but a source said he was affiliated with a gang he was trying to break free from.
