Queensbridge Teen Charged With Fatal Shooting At Ravenswood: DA

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — A Long Island City teenager was indicted on a murder charges for a fatal shooting at Ravenswood Houses last year — and prosecutors claim his arrest is all thanks to a transit cop who stopped the teen for farebeating at a Queens subway station.

Queensbridge Houses resident Shahid Burton was arraigned Friday on charges that he shot 29-year-old Jelan Moreira to death in a Ravenswood Houses courtyard the morning of Aug. 26, 2018, according to a press release from the Queens district attorney's office.

Prosecutors claim that surveillance video shows Burton, 19, approach Moreira from behind and shoot him several times in the chest. Reached by phone, Burton's defense lawyer, Scott Bookstein, called the video "questionable" evidence.

Acting Queens District Attorney John M. Ryan said a police officer spotted the teen doubling up with another straphanger about 1 a.m. on March 28 to get through a subway turnstile in the Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue station in Jamaica.

The transit cop stopped the teen for fare evasion, then discovered he was one of two suspects in the 2018 Ravenswood shooting, according to prosecutors.

Burton's lawyer raised questions about the timing of his arrest, saying that Burton was known to the criminal justice system at the time and had been regularly appearing in court. The lawyer declined to elaborate.

"As far as I know, the police weren't routinely going to his home trying to track him down. That really wasn't an issue," Bookstein, the lawyer, told Patch. "I'm wondering if they're putting a spin, like, we catch suspected murderers when they jump the turnstile."

Burton is being held without bail. If convicted, he could spend up to 25 years to life in prison.