Boy, 14, Is Charged With Murder in Stray Shooting on Brooklyn Bus

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By Michael Schwirtz and Julie Turkewitz

He sat toward the front of the bus, facing forward, immersed in a cellphone conversation, unaware that his life was about to end.

Angel Rojas was on a break between his two jobs on Thursday evening, riding the B15 through northern Brooklyn as he often did, taking time to stop at home to hug his children and grab a quick bite. When three young adults stepped aboard the bus, he most likely thought nothing of it.

Several rows back, the police say, a 14-year-old boy, a member of a street gang called the Stack Money Goons, had a visceral reaction. At least one of the three young adults belonged to a warring crew; there was a shared flash of recognition, and then, the police say, the 14-year-old pulled out a .357 revolver and fired one shot inside the bus.

The bullet missed the intended target but struck Mr. Rojas in the back of the head. Mr. Rojas had no time to react; there were few if any words exchanged, and police officials said a video of the encounter showed Mr. Rojas's head simply slumping forward after sustaining the mortal wound.

Mr. Rojas, 39, was rushed to Woodhull Medical Center, where he died a short time later, the police and emergency workers said.

Relatives at Mr. Rojas's home in East Flatbush said he came to the United States about four years ago from the Dominican Republic with his wife, Maria Lopez, 41, their son, Saury, 12, and their daughter, April, 8.

On Friday, the 14-year-old, Kathon Anderson, was charged with second-degree murder, criminal use of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon. Because of the gravity of his crime, authorities said he would be tried as an adult.

Kathon was arraigned on Friday evening in Brooklyn Criminal Court. Lindsay Gerdes, an assistant district attorney, said that after the shooting Kathon "made statements admitting his participation in the crime."

Kathon's lawyer, Frederic Pratt of the Legal Aid Society, said that he and his client sympathized with the Rojas family. "I’m just going to ask everyone not to rush to judgment," Mr. Pratt said.

After Kathon fired the shot aboard the bus, he and the three young adults ran off the bus; five more shots were fired outside, said Stephen Davis, the Police Department's top spokesman. None of those bullets struck anyone; the police recovered the revolver, and all six rounds had been fired.

Mr. Davis said that it appeared their meeting was a chance encounter, and that the shooting most likely was not premeditated. The suspect's rivals boarded the bus near Lafayette Avenue, seven blocks from where Kathon had gotten on, the police said.

When the bus driver realized that a passenger had been shot, she drove the bus to a volunteer ambulance corps a couple of blocks away, said Ron Carter, the chairman of the East New York bus depot where the driver is based.

The driver, whose name was not released, was treated for trauma. Reached by telephone, she said she was "very hurt about this and still shocked."

The shooting appeared to have stemmed from a continuing dispute between Kathon's crew and a rival group called the Twan Family.

The members of both crews are mostly teenagers who reside in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where the shooting occurred, the police said.

Such gangs are typically associated with a particular housing project or neighborhood block, and are a major source of gun violence in the city, officials say. Their turf wars can be as combustive as they are petty, with a misplaced glance on the street or a slight on Facebook quickly escalating to bloodshed.

"The stupidity of those gangs that basically over nothing are trying to kill each other, and unfortunately in the process kill innocents, as they did with this hardworking young man trying to raise his family," Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said on Friday. "A life needlessly lost, taken by a 14-year-old who felt it necessary to carry a gun on a city bus and shoot. Amazing."

The Stack Money Goons are affiliated with the Tompkins Houses, a housing project about a block away from the Marcy Houses, where the Twan Family is based. It is not clear how Kathon, whose home is several blocks away, came to join the Stack Money Goons.

Both gangs emerged about a year and a half ago, and members of the crews have exchanged fire at least once in the last month, said Deputy Inspector Michael LiPetri, the commanding officer of the 79th Precinct in Brooklyn. Though no members of the two groups had been arrested on homicide charges, several members of both have been shot and at least one member of the Stack Money Goons has been arrested for a past shooting, he said.

The crews are small, numbering only a few dozen members, Inspector LiPetri said.

At the Tompkins Houses, the crew's name is scrawled all over the walls, and residents said they were afraid to speak of them. One young man would not answer questions and pointed at the windows of the housing project beside him, to indicate crew members might be watching.

"One thing I’m going to tell you, those little kids, they ain't to be messed with," he said.

Kathon had attended the Whitelaw Reid Junior High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant but was recently transferred to Intermediate School 353 in Crown Heights, according to students at both schools.

It was common knowledge, his former classmates said, that Kathon had been transferred for his own safety; they recalled how groups of youths would often be waiting for him outside of school, looking to fight him.

For the Rojas-Lopez family, much is still unknown.

A Dominican organization will cover the costs of sending Mr. Rojas to be buried in his home country, said Josie Guerrero, a cousin. The family is working to raise money so that his wife and their children can travel as well, she said.

Saury, Mr. Rojas's son, said he was concerned about how his family would stay in their small apartment at the top of a narrow flight of steps, where a golden cross hangs above the door. Mr. Rojas was the family's main wage-earner. His wife works part-time as a home attendant.

"She's worried about the rent," said Saury, speaking of his mother. "If we don't pay the rent, she says we don't know where we’re going to end up."

Ms. Guerrero said, "You can't even get on the bus and feel safe in a city where the bus is one of the main forms of transportation."

"This morning I didn't want to get on a bus," she said. "I took a cab."

Al Baker, Sarah Maslin Nir and Kate Pastor contributed reporting.