Deadly shooting of teen was 'retaliatory' for savage mass stomping of girl, police say

The killing of a teenager in Brooklyn earlier this week was a "retaliatory shooting" for the savage mass stomping of a 15-year-old girl in March, police told the New York Daily News.

What are the details?

Tyquan Howard, 16, died Tuesday night, hours after he was shot in the abdomen on St. John's Place near Utica Avenue, officials told the paper.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison told the Daily News Thursday that the shooting location was just steps away from where authorities said Howard and over a dozen other teens stomped and beat the girl March 5 before one of them pulled her Air Jordan sneakers right off her feet.

Harrison told the paper his detectives linked the two incidents: "[This was a] retaliatory shooting that stems from the young woman jumped and robbed by a group of boys over by the Albany Houses. All of it is stemming from crew-on-crew, gang-on-gang violence."

Howard was among several teens charged after police released surveillance video of the attack on the girl, the Daily News said, adding that he was conscious after being shot and told police he didn't know the shooter. No arrests have been made, the paper said.

What's the background?

In the March mass assault caught on video, the girl apparently was knocked to the sidewalk by one male before others joined the attack and began stomping her:

Image source: YouTube screenshot

At least a dozen suspects surrounded the victim, kicking and punching her.

After the attack one of them pulled her Air Jordans right off her feet:

Image source: YouTube screenshot

One witness said the victim was "bleeding like crazy" on the sidewalk.

15-year-old girl attacked, robbed by gang of teen boys in Brooklyn I ABC7youtu.be

In the aftermath, five males between the ages of 14 and 17 were arrested and charged with robbery and gang assault. A mother of one suspect told the New York Daily News she made her 14-year-old son turn himself into police.

"When I saw the video I literally wanted to kill him with my own hands. I was very, very pissed off," Donna Howell told the paper. "He didn't want to go at first and I said, 'No you're going to go, you're going to turn yourself in.'"

Judge calls sneaker-stealing suspect 'youthful offender' rather than 'defendant'

A 14-year-old accused by prosecutors of stealing the girl's sneakers was referred to as a "youthful offender" by Judge Ruth Shillingford rather than "defendant" during his arraignment, the Daily News said in a separate story. It isn't clear if the teen in question is the same one whose mother made him turn himself in to cops.

The Brooklyn district attorney requested $10,000 bail for all 11 suspects eventually arrested, but that was rejected — instead they were hit with after-school curfews, the Daily News said.

The Daily News also talked to the victim's neighbors who described her as a quiet girl who lives with her mother and sister.

"She doesn't get in trouble, she doesn't deserve that," 13-year-old neighbor Jacob Black told the Daily News. "She's a basketball player, that's all she does."

"She goes to school and comes home. She's quiet," a next-door neighbor who declined to share her name added to paper. "Those were animals. I can't see how those young boys did that to her."