NYC teen dies in Brooklyn stabbing NYPD suspects was gang related; latest in rash of violence involving city’s youth

A teenage boy described by the city schools chancellor as a “joyful leader” died Saturday of a wound he suffered when he was jumped and stabbed by a group of teens in Brooklyn, police said.

The killing was the latest in a rash of violence across the city involving young people, including a shooting Thursday night that took the life of a 15-year-old Bronx boy.

“Our city suffers because of these losses,” schools Chancellor David Banks said on Twitter. “We will support the students and schools impacted by violence this week as they grieve and work with all schools to help young people turn away from violence.”

Five teenage boys chasing 17-year-old Nyheem Wright of Brooklyn around 3:20 p.m. Friday caught up with him in a Rite Aid parking lot on Mermaid Ave. near W. 30th St. in Coney Island.

There they beat him up and mortally stabbed him, said police.

When cops arrived, they found that Nyheem had been stabbed once in the torso.

He was rushed to Maimonides Medical Center in critical condition, where he succumbed to his injuries on Saturday afternoon, cops said.

The attack took place in a parking lot in a retail district, across Mermaid Ave. from from elementary school P.S. 329 The Surfside School, where students had been let out about a half hour earlier.

Cops believe the attack was gang related, a police source said. There had been no arrests as of Saturday, and the investigation remained underway.

Nyheem was a student at K728 Liberation Diploma Plus high school, about a mile from the scene, according to the NYC School Safety Coalition.

“He was on the verge of graduation, and was a hard worker who took an active role in leading other young people at his school,” Banks tweeted on Saturday evening. He called Nyheem’s death “an utterly tragic loss of life.”

Police officials have blamed the youth violence on gangs and on social-media taunting.

Crime is up in Coney Island in the first weeks of 2023, police department data shows.

As of Jan. 15, police in the 60th Precinct, which covers the neighborhood, counted 26 felony assaults, up 160% from the 10 felony assaults reported in the same period of 2022. Burglaries and grand larcenies are also up.

But as of January 15, no shootings had been reported in the precinct.

With Cayla Bamberger