City Failed Teen Rapper Shot Dead In Bed-Stuy, Mayor Says

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — A teen rapper who was shot and killed in Bed-Stuy this week is a "case study" of thousands of children failed by the system in New York City, according to Mayor Eric Adams.

"I didn't know Jayquan, but his death hit me hard," a tearful Adams said in the address about 18-year-old Jayquan McKenley, who was fatally shot in the chest while sitting in a parked car on Greene Avenue on Sunday, according to police.

"The more I found out about Jayquan's story, the more I saw how many times he had been failed by a system that is supposed to help boys like him ... I saw the pattern — a clear profile emerged of someone who needed help and never got enough."

The Bronx teen's killing prompted both a public apology from Adams to McKenley's family and a call to action to city agencies, who Adams said should have caught the warning signs that he was headed on a wrong path.

The public address comes as the mayor pushes a sweeping plan aimed at ending the ongoing "public health crisis" of gun violence in the city.

"This isn't a speech about a policy or single young life, it's a case study of how a young man became a potential trigger puller," Adams said. "It's an anatomy of a failure — not of Jayquan's failure — but of ours."

McKenley's journey through the system began when he was just 5 years old, when he and his family landed in a homeless shelter, according to Adams. His family would live in seven different homeless shelters over the next four years, the mayor said.

After attending kindergarten at a school for children with severe cognitive disabilities, McKenley was put in a mainstream elementary school where he continued to fall behind, the mayor said.

As a teenager, McKenley attended five different high schools, logging a total of 250 absences. He was arrested multiple times between 2017 and 2021, including a gun arrest and eventually, an attempted murder charge, the mayor said.

"At this point we had all the signs you could ever have that a young man’s life was in crisis," Adams said. "He was young, there was still time to turn [from] the path of violence."

Adams pointed in part to McKenley's involvement with the "drill" rap scene. An aspiring artist who performed as Chii Wittz, McKenley had joined a style of music known for its dark and violent content that "bled out into violent real-world confrontations," according to Adams.

McKenley's death came less than a week after another drill rapper known as Tdott Woo, a protege of murdered drill rapper Pop Smoke, was fatally shot in Canarsie, according to reports.

Law enforcement haven't officially tied McKenley's death to the drill rap scene, though he was shot after attending a recording session at a Brooklyn studio, according to the Daily News.

Adams vowed Thursday to have his city agencies explore ways to help New York City's "thousands of other Jayquans," who he related to his own upbringing as a young man in Brooklyn.

"To Jayquan's mother and father, I want to say I'm sorry," Adams said. "I’m sorry that our city missed so many chances to help your family. I’m sorry that your son was passed over for so long and taken from you too soon. You have my word as your mayor I‘ll be looking out for the thousands of other Jayquans in our city because I was once a Jayquan, too."