A 14-year-old boy, Jamauri Mezar, was killed inside his family’s third-floor apartment on 161st Street in Jamaica, Queens, on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 25, 2025. Mezar was with three friends when a firearm that one friend had brought to the gathering discharged; a single shot struck him in the head. Emergency medical services pronounced him dead at the scene after a 911 call around 5 p.m.

Neighbors saw Mezar’s mother, a nurse, return home in deep distress. Classmates from MS38 and others in the neighborhood held a candle-and-balloon vigil for the boy. The NYPD opened an investigation into how the gun ended up in the teenagers’ possession. By the following morning a 15-year-old longstanding friend of Mezar’s was taken into custody and charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon; he was ordered held at a juvenile facility after a Family Court appearance. The investigation is ongoing.

If anyone was at the apartment that afternoon or has information about how the firearm came to be there, please share what you know.