Brooklyn man convicted of murder for shooting 15-year-old in Flatlands schoolyard

February 11, 2015 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Brooklyn D.A. Kenneth Thompson. Eagle file Youtube screenshot

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Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson today announced that a 20-year-old man has been convicted of second-degree murder, first-degree assault and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon for the 2011 shooting of a 15-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy in the schoolyard of P.S. 119 in Flatlands.

The defendant, identified as Vincent Adeyeye, 20, was convicted Monday following a jury trial. Adeyeye is set to be sentenced by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Vincent Del Guidice, on March 5. He faces 25 years to life in prison on the top count.

According to trial testimony, on July 16, 2011, at approximately 7 p.m., at P.S. 119, which is located at East 39th Street and Avenue K, in Flatlands, the defendant, who was 16 years old at the time, fired numerous shots into a crowded schoolyard and struck two innocent bystanders. The shooting was allegedly in retaliation for a shooting the night before.

Dequan Mercurius, 15, who was playing basketball, suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the left side of his torso. A 13-year-old boy, who had just purchased ice cream from a Mr. Softee truck, was shot once in the buttocks and once in the foot, and survived.

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office stated the defendant was arrested in October 2012 after his DNA was matched to a firearm left at the scene of the shooting.

-Information provided by the Kings County District Attorney’s Office