On the late afternoon of August 25, 2020, 24-year-old Yonkers resident Chazz Leroy Mitchell was killed after a dispute on Oak Street. Mitchell was with a group when another man approached; a brief physical altercation ensued and the man produced a handgun, firing at least one shot that struck Mitchell in the abdomen. A third party transported Mitchell to Saint Joseph’s Medical Center, where he was unresponsive and later died.

Yonkers Police investigators determined the shooting was not random and that Mitchell and the shooter knew each other. The man wanted for the murder was identified as Jerome Wilson. After more than a year and a half on the run, with investigators following leads in New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania and the FBI offering a reward, Wilson was arrested in Charlotte, North Carolina, in April 2022 and returned to New York to face charges.

Wilson was indicted on counts including second-degree murder and manslaughter and later pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter on May 30, 2023. On July 20, 2023, a judge sentenced him to 15 years in state prison; during sentencing he apologized to Mitchell’s family and said he wished he had done more to de-escalate the conflict. Does anyone have memories of Mitchell or information about the Oak Street altercation that could shed light on what led to that confrontation?