A hooligan whose reckless gunfight allegedly led to the tragic demise of beloved Harlem neighborhood pillar Excenia Mette was out on bail in a slashing case when the mindless capturing unfolded, The Publish has realized.
Darious Smith, 23, pulled a white Tyvek go well with over his face as he was pushed in a wheelchair right into a Manhattan courthouse Thursday to face expenses of tried homicide and legal possession of a firearm for Mette’s demise.
Sources mentioned Smith is believed to have exchanged photographs with the still-at-large gunman whose stray bullet hit Mette within the head as she selflessly rushed exterior to test on her grandson Tuesday evening.
Smith was shot within the foot through the scuffle.
Manhattan Prison Court docket Choose Kacie Lally ordered Smith to be jailed with out bail — an end result he dodged the final time he stood accused of a violent crime.
“That is what’s making our job tougher,” Mayor Eric Adams mentioned Thursday throughout an occasion about taking unlawful weapons off the streets.
“If you permit those that have recidivism, steady violence in our metropolis to proceed to stroll the streets,” he mentioned.
“Prison justice system consists of police, judiciary, and legislators. All of them have to be engaged on the identical path.”
Data present Smith was arrested in June 2024 after he allegedly slashed two individuals with a field cutter on Lenox Avenue close to West 118th Avenue whereas he tried to steal e-bike batteries.
When he was arraigned on theft and assault expenses, prosecutors in Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg’s workplace requested bail at $50,000 money or $150,000 bond, information present.
However Choose Michael Ryan set it at $10,000, which Smith posted — permitting him to stroll free forward of his scheduled Could trial, sources mentioned.
Smith lived only a block away from Mette’s former enterprise, Momma Zee’s Meals to Plez Deli, which was the primary black woman-owned bodega within the metropolis when she opened it within the Nineteen Eighties.
Family members and neighbors gathered Thursday at a makeshift shrine in entrance of Mette’s house at West 113th Avenue and Lenox Avenue, the place she was shot.
They hung up a photograph of Mette, whom they affectionately knew as “Momma Zee” or “Zeenie,” frolicking on a seaside.
Neighbor Barbara Johnson, 66, mentioned she wasn’t stunned one of many shooters is an accused repeat offender.
“They should do one thing for the youth, to maintain them occupied, give them one thing to do, one thing to look ahead to,” she mentioned.
“Idle palms is the Satan’s workshop.”
“No system devised to maintain the individuals down will do something to assist us up, and that’s from the start, the primary day of this nation.”
Adams, talking to PIX11 Wednesday evening, as an alternative blamed the legal justice system for permitting Smith to be out on the streets.
“Public security is a legal justice equipment that features police, that features judges, that features lawmakers. The police are doing their job,” he mentioned.
“When you’ve gotten an individual with repeated violence, simply final yr, he was arrested for theft, stabbing two individuals. Now he’s again on the road, concerned in a capturing that took the lifetime of an harmless girl. We’ve to have the different elements of the legal justice system do their job.”
Metropolis Councilman Yusef Salaam (D-Manhattan) — who represents the Harlem neighborhood and chairs the council’s public security committee — issued a heartfelt remembrance of Mette, and blamed the violence partly on systemic failures.
“Harlem is in mourning for Mette, who fed the neighborhood, stood beside the youth and gave again via service with leaders such because the Rev. Al Sharpton and the artist Jim Jones,” Salaam mentioned.
“This act of violence — the results of reckless and lethal battle on our streets — is yet one more painful reminder that we’re within the midst of a public security disaster,” he mentioned.
“It’s a disaster rooted not simply in crime, however in an extended historical past of disinvestment, lack of alternative, and the systemic failures that proceed to plague our neighborhoods.”
Different lawmakers representing the world targeted on gun prevention efforts, reminiscent of Assemblyman Jordan Wright (D-Manhattan), who known as it a reminder “of how crucial it’s to get weapons off of our streets.”
“We’ve to proceed preventing laborious collectively to search out options,” added state Sen. Cordelle Cleare (D-Manhattan) in a press release.
“Now is just not the time for sources to be reduce.”
Video footage confirmed a person matching Smith’s description experience a scooter towards a bunch of individuals, pull a gun and fireplace two photographs, courtroom papers state.
Police consider the second suspect then grabbed a gun of his personal and fired off the photographs that wounded Smith and killed Mette, law-enforcement sources have mentioned.
Smith allegedly rode the scooter alongside West 113th Avenue earlier than he collided with an NYPD cop who tried to cease him, the courtroom docs state.
He ran away onto St. Nicholas Avenue, the place he threw a 9-millimeter pistol to the sidewalk, the papers state.
Sources mentioned eight bullets had been discovered on the deadly capturing scene.
Smith’s high-profile legal protection legal professional Daybreak Florio claimed in courtroom that 4 cops beat him with a weapons and a Taser, along with his gunshot wound.
She requested for medical consideration for Smith and griped that him being related with the capturing is inflicting issues for his family members.
“My consumer’s household who lives within the neighborhood is getting threatened,” she mentioned.
— Extra reporting by Vaughn Golden and Hannah Fierick
