A 21-year-old man has been arrested for gunning down a Bronx teen in a gang-related slaying that led Police Commissioner Dermot Shea to lament the victim’s live-by-the-gun, die-by-the-gun lifestyle.
Detectives identified Xavier Rosado as the killer of 16-year-old Nisayah Sanchez shortly after the Sept. 29 shooting on E. 187th St. in Crotona, a police source said.
On Friday, officers spotted Rosado on E. 178th St. and Arthur Ave. and took him into custody. Rosado asked for a lawyer and refused to talk, but cops matched DNA from a cigarette he discarded just before his arrest to evidence found at the scene, said the source.
In an appearance on PIX 11 a day after Nisayah’s slaying, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said the teen had a criminal record “as long as my arm” — and railed against the teen’s poor life choices.
“Look at this child — and he’s a child,” Shea said. “He’s 16 years old and he’s arrested for a gun weeks before. Once before that he was arrested for a gun. A month before that he was arrested for a gun.”
Three weeks before his death, Nisayah was busted for gun possession after he was seen with a .38-caliber pistol sticking out of his waistband at Park Ave. and E. 181st St., just a few blocks from where he was killed, police said.
Shea wondered how a 16-year-old could rack up three gun arrests in such a short time. “And I’m not talking about the times he was arrested for slashing people with a machete and with a dagger,” the commissioner said.
On the day of the shooting, Nisayah and a 23-year-old man were standing near Clinton Ave. about 12:50 p.m. when two men exited a gray Honda Accord and opened fire, hitting them multiple times, before speeding off.
EMS rushed Nisayah to St. Barnabas Hospital, but he couldn’t be saved.
