Daniel Lachapel, 25, was shot in the head on Allerton Ave. near White Plains Road in Allerton at about 10:50 p.m. Saturday. He died at the scene.

Neighbors said they heard multiple shots ring out but not much commotion after.

“I heard eight shots,” said Kevin Hernandez, 30, who lives in the building and was a friend of the victim. “The guy is the calmest guy. He doesn’t mess with anybody. He’s always on his own.”

Cops have made no arrests in the slaying.

“People couldn’t even go outside ’cause [police] said it was a crime scene,” Hernandez said. “When they told me who it was, it just shocked me. I didn’t expect that guy to get killed.”

Neighbor Hector Martinez, 64, said he didn’t realize the shots happened so close to home until police arrived.

“Oh, man, 25 years old? Young guy. I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “I’m new here. I came here from Miami. … I haven’t heard something bad happen here like that.”

Still Hernandez and others described the neighborhood as dangerous.

“Me, myself I got jumped a month ago,” Hernandez recounted. “This area is just bad. Same spot he got shot is the same spot I got jumped.”

Lachapel’s shooting marks the second homicide this year in the Bronx’s 49th Precinct, which saw five killings in all of 2023.

“I want to see this guy locked up. I’m going to trust the justice system and let them do their job,” Charles Marino said of the worker who killed Dylan Marino, 21, in a confrontation over a stolen beer on May 7. “I’m very hopeful that they will do a complete, thorough investigation.”

The 21-year-old bodega worker was taken into custody Tuesday and released that evening without charges. Members of a city bodega organization have claimed the worker acted in self-defense.

The 58-year-old father was joined at the send-off by dozens of tearful mourners at St. Joan of Arc Roman Catholic Church in Jackson Heights, Queens.

Pictures of Marino through the years were displayed near his casket, and incense smoke filled the room.

“I think my son would’ve liked his own funeral,” the victim’s mother Kate Dessommes said with a smile. “He liked incense and there was a lot of incense.”

“He was the most beautiful, caring human I ever knew. He will be so, so profoundly missed,” Marino’s father said. “This has been the hardest situation that I ever experienced, it’s just unimaginable.”

Marino walked inside Mini Mart on Queens Blvd. near 64th Rd. in Rego Park at about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, swiped a beer from the fridge and left, cops said.

The clerk behind the counter, identified by United Bodegas of America as Netesh Netesh, followed Marino outside and demanded he return the stolen item, sparking a violent fight between the two men, cops said.

During the brawl, Netesh stabbed would-be shoplifter Marino with a pocketknife, Fernando Mateo of UBA said at a news conference outside the store.

“He did not leave this bodega to murder anyone,” Mateo said. “He was robbed. He came out to claim what he believed was his [and] he was attacked. His life was in danger and he had a pocketknife which we believe he used to defend himself.”

Marino’s mother previously told The News that she’d like the bodega to close down as “retribution.”

Netesh is related to the Mini Mart owner and has never been in trouble with the law before, said Mateo.

Marino had three prior arrests in the city, including an arrest for shoplifting in March, attempted robbery in October, and assault in March 2023, cops said.

Marino’s father acknowledged it was wrong for him to shoplift, but argued that the worker never should have followed him outside.

“It was completely wrong for him to lose his life over a stupid beer. He lost his life over a beer and the guy didn’t have to give chase over a beer,” said the father. “I get it you didn’t want to be stolen from and this and that, but he had limited means, he wanted a beer, he grabbed a beer, and it wasn’t worth his life.”

A spokesperson for the Queens District Attorney’s office said, “This is an ongoing investigation and we have no comment.”

Relatives recalled Marino as a sensitive, artistic kid who always had several interests at a time growing up in Portland, Oregon. Marino wound up in Queens in 2021 after his mother made the move to New York.

“He loved music, he liked skateboarding, he liked rap and [rapper] Juice WRLD. He was very interested in working in music. He liked to rap and sing and do his beats,” his mother, Dessommes said.

“I’ll never in this waking world get to hear his voice again,” the elder Marino said emotionally. “Everywhere I look, I’ll see him, I’ll feel him in my house, I’ll never as long as I live forget him.”

It was 16-year-old Mahki Brown’s innate desire to help that led to him being shot in the courtyard of the luxury Dominick Hotel on Spring St. near Varick St. Tuesday afternoon, his family believes. Cops say he was intervening in a fight between two groups of girls when he was killed.

“If he sees situations that’s not the right thing, he’ll intervene and try to break fights up,” said the teen’s basketball coach Jessica Jenkins, 32. “His heart is going to help out.”

Jenkins, 48, was among a group of neighbors who tried their best to console Mahki’s mother at her East Flatbush apartment Wednesday morning.

“He was always trying to help somebody,” said family friend LaKesha Jenkins, who had known Mahki since he was just 4. “He wasn’t a bad kid. He wasn’t disrespectful.”

The teen’s mother was too grief-stricken to talk to reporters. Mahki was her only child, friends said.

Mahki had just left Broome Street Academy Charter High School and was hanging out with his friends at the nearby courtyard when he intervened in the clash between two groups of girls about 2:30 p.m., police said.

Another teen stepped in to defend a girl in the opposing group, pulled a gun and fired several shots, hitting Mahki once in the head and twice in the thigh, according to cops.

“He had a bullet in his head and his leg,” a man who saw the shooting told the Daily News Tuesday. “He was unconscious and not moving. They put him on a stretcher and did CPR.”

Medics rushed the wounded teen to Bellevue Hospital, where he died.

The gunman and an accomplice took off on one Citi Bike and are still on the loose.

The victim’s shaken girlfriend shed tears at a memorial set up outside the teen’s apartment building Wednesday, saying she was with Mahki when he was killed.

“I just keep seeing him on the floor,” said the girl, who did not share her name.

LaKesha Jenkins said Mahki first went to high school in Queens, but his mother moved him to the lower Manhattan charter school his sophomore year.

“He needed change,” said the family friend. “He couldn’t be here in this area because it was this area that strayed him.”

After his mother switched him to the new school “the change came,” LaKesha Jenkins said, making the hourlong commute each way worth it.

“You [saw] the growth,” she recalled. “He wanted better because he saw what his mom was doing for him. She was leading him to his future.”

News of Mahki’s death hit everyone in his apartment building “hard as a unit,” LaKesha Jenkins said.

“We watched him grow up. He loved basketball,” she said. “His only problem is that he was always trying to help everybody. We have those people who have that type of heart.”

Mahki played basketball with Brooklyn youth groups, his coach said as she fought back tears.

“He played since he was very little,” said Jessica Jenkins. “Mahki was his own favorite basketball player. He was passionate about the game. Sometimes you can see him frustrated in games. I’d calm him down.”

Both teens and adults throughout the sprawling complex were in shock.

“I was crying this morning, I couldn’t believe it,” said Ramel Williams, 45, another friend of the family.

“I known him since he was 6, 7 years old,” Williams said. “It hit me hard. It’s disappointing. My heart is sad.”

“You can say I seen him as a bit of a son to me,” added Williams.

LaKesha Jenkins suspects the gunman is also a young boy.

“It was probably a child who did it,” she said. “The sad part about it is the person that did it, their parents don’t even know what they’re out here doing.”

As cops collect surveillance footage that could help them track the gunman’s movements, Mahki’s family and friends are hoping for a quick arrest.

“Who commanded [the gunman] to be God, to take someone’s life?” LaKesha Jenkins asked. “We are going to pray, and we are hoping whoever did this gets caught.”

With Rocco Parascandola

Michael Rivera was arrested Tuesday for manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, leaving the scene of a fatal crash, speeding and blowing a red light. The blistering Feb. 26 Williamsburg crash killed his friend Alex Caba, who turned 33 that day.

Caba was planning on spending his birthday quietly at home until Rivera, 31, insisted on taking him out, the victim’s sister Ivelise Caba told the Daily News on Wednesday.

“He wasn’t planning on going outside. He had no intentions of going out. Michael was the one who called him and said, ‘Come out, come out!’ Eventually my brother was like, ‘All right.’ ”

Caba left with Rivera about three hours before the deadly crash, the sister said.

“These have honestly just been two months of shock, still in disbelief,” she said. “It’s hard to have someone come home every day and then gone.”

According to police, Rivera was speeding south on Harrison Ave. when he recklessly blew through a steady red light at Lorimer St. and was struck by a B48 bus.

The bus driver, eastbound on Lorimer St., had the green light when he struck the rear passenger side of the Mercedes. The impact sent the Mercedes spinning onto the sidewalk, where it struck a Citi Bike kiosk.

Caba, who was riding in the back seat, flew from the car, landing on the street.

As Caba lay dying in the street, Rivera and three others in the mangled wreck ran off on foot, police and MTA sources said.

Ivelise Caba said Rivera never came by to explain to her family what happened.

“He has been hiding,” she said. “He continued to live his life as if nothing happened.”

Caba and Rivera lived five blocks from each other in Williamsburg, about a mile from where the crash took place

The Caba family can’t imagine why Rivera would flee when his friend was dying.

“As a friend, you should want to stay and help,” the dead man’s mother, Olga Caba, said in February. “They ran away. They left Alex alone.”

Rivera’s arraignment was pending in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Wednesday.

“The word is so-called justice but this justice isn’t going to bring my brother back,” said Ivelise Caba.

The latest victim, Daequan Buckley, was shot multiple times in the abdomen outside the Magic Fingers Studio Hair Salon near E. 54th St. and Church Ave. in East Flatbush about 8:20 p.m. Saturday, cops said.

“The shooter was a passenger in the car and victim was in the driver’s seat,” said a woman who works in the area and witnessed the bloodshed. “They were sitting in the car together.”

She described the vehicle as a BMW with temporary paper license plates.

“The guy shot him three times, and he got out the car and walked away,” she said. “The area is horrible. It’s not shocking to me seeing this happen. I’ve worked in the area for two years. It’s not good.”

Medics rushed Buckley to Brookdale University Hospital, but he couldn’t be saved.

Police took two people, one carrying a gun, into custody as persons of interest.

Ring Tong, who works at a laundromat across the street, said she heard a barrage of shots.

“I couldn’t see anything, but there was some guys from the corner running toward the car after the shooting,” she said. “The guy was shot in the car. I couldn’t believe it.”

Another worker in the neighborhood, Ariel Jiminiaa, a manager at America’s Food Basket, said he heard the three shots “back to back,” then saw people running away.

“Over here, little by little it’s gotten a bit better, but sometimes you have problems,” he said.

The slaying was the third murder in Brooklyn’s 67th Precinct this month.

On April 20, 40-year-old bodega owner Anthony Lancaster was shot to death on E. 53th St. and Clarkson Ave.

Three days earlier, Gamaliel Oliver, 45, was dropped off at Brookdale University Hospital with a fatal gunshot to his abdomen. Police later determined he was gunned down on E. 98th St. near Lenox Road in East Flatbush about an hour earlier.

The precinct has seen a jump in homicides this year, with seven slayings through April 21 compared with five by the same point last year. Murders citywide are down more than 18% so far this year compared with the same period last year.

With Emma Seiwell

Firefighters responding to the 4:54 a.m. blaze in a fenced-in property on Conover St. near Beard St. in Red Hook — about a block from the Erie Basin and Pier 44 — found the white boat on fire, cops said.

Witnesses first called 911 reporting a dumpster fire, FDNY officials said. But when firefighters arrived, they realized the fire was coming from a boat on a trailer.

The fire had just been put out when firefighters made the grisly discovery: a man’s body on the boat.

The man died at the scene, officials said. Cops were trying to identify him Saturday.

The FDNY Fire Marshal was trying to determine what sparked the fire.

An autopsy has been scheduled to determine just how the man died.

They added that after climbing the stairs behind the victim to the second floor, suspect Ellow Williams held his her neck in a chokehold so tightly that she lost consciousness several times during the vicious attack.

After raping the 23-year-old woman, Williams robbed her, taking off with $40, a prosecutor said.

“The defendant followed the victim, a complete stranger, for several blocks to an apartment building at approximately 4 in the morning,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Christina Awad recounted.

“The defendant was seen on video following the victim, ducking behind cars and trying to avoid getting detected,” she added. “He is then seen on video entering the victim’s apartment building behind the victim as she entered the door using a key fob.”

Before the door could close, Williams crept in behind her, police said.

Once inside the building near the corner of Thompson and Prince streets, Williams placed a mask over his face and followed the woman to the second floor, where approached her from behind, put her in a chokehold, threatened to shoot her and sexually assaulted her, Awad said.

The man told the woman, “If you scream, I’ll shoot you,” according to cops. Williams did not flash or simulate a gun, police said.

“Throughout the assault, the defendant applied pressure to the victim’s neck and mouth multiple times, causing her to go in and out of consciousness and ensuring she would remain subdued as he continued to assault her,” Awad said.

The victim was treated at a local hospital and released.

Williams, 30, was remanded without bail during his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court.

He is scheduled to be back in court on April 29.

Williams was on parole after serving time in prison on a robbery conviction.

The accused rapist has five prior arrests in New York City. He spent nearly two years in prison for robbery and was released on parole in March 2023, records show.

“It’s different with men,” Daquan Armstead, 31, told a detective after he was arrested and charged with assaulting random women in Manhattan, a prosecutor said at the suspect’s Wednesday arraignment.

“They don’t test you like women do. You have to check women sometimes.”

Officials said Armstead made misogynistic comments after cops arrested him and charged him with assaults in Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, Tribeca and the Bowery.

Some of the attacks were the subject of TikTok videos shot by women who had been targeted. The viral clips set New Yorkers on edge and drew national attention.

Armstead was released without bail after he assaulted a woman in 2021 and was set loose again in February after the first incident in the latest string of violence, prosecutors said.

The man was arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan Criminal Court and charged with several counts of assault and assault as a hate crime.

“He is currently out on two bench warrants,” said Judge Michael Ryan. “Based on the information presented to me, he does pose a risk of flight to avoid prosecution and bail is required to ensure his return to court.”

A warrant was already out for Armstead’s arrest after he failed to return to court following an assault on a woman in 2021, for which he was given a desk appearance ticket.

But he didn’t show up in court again until February, when he was arrested for attacking another woman. He was put on supervised release and failed to show up in court again until after he was arrested and charged with seven more attacks.

Ryan set bail this time at $20,000. Armstead is due back in court Friday. He has been given a psychiatric evaluation and medical attention, officials said.

Armstead’s attorney Katherine Bajuk said incarceration would do Armstead more harm than good.

“Your Honor, when someone with a mental health concern is incarcerated, nothing good happens for anyone,” she said. “The person becomes destabilized, the person becomes less connected with certain things that they need and the outcome for everyone and everything is worse.”

The women Armstead attacked range in age from 24 to 44, cops said.

Cops said his victims included a 27-year-old New York University administrator who was punched in the head as she walked along Washington Square North near Fifth Ave. in Greenwich Village the morning of April 17.

Isaac Karczag, 62, allegedly veered his silver Buick into an oncoming lane and was turning against the light when he slammed into little Yitty Wertzberger in a Williamsburg intersection about 2:40 p.m. Tuesday.

He remained at the scene. Cops later charged him with failure to yield to a pedestrian, disobeying a traffic device and failure to exercise due care. He was released with a desk appearance ticket to appear in Brooklyn Criminal Court in the next few weeks.

Hundreds of mourners lined the streets outside the  Viznitz Synagogue in Williamsburg for Yitty’s funeral Wednesday as pall bearers lifted the child-sized casket from the back of a car.

Silence fell over the tearful crowd as a prayer was said over the young victim’s casket before it was carried up the street to the house of worship.

Some men and women passed around donation baskets for the girl’s family.

“It’s just a difficult time,” one attendee said.

Karczag was heading west on Wallabout St. when he glided into the eastbound lane to make a left turn onto Franklin Ave. against the light, cops said.

Yitty was on her way home from school and was in the crosswalk with the walk light when Karczag’s Buick with Florida plates knocked her to the ground and ran her over, cops and witnesses said.

She was about three blocks home when she was fatally struck, police said.

“A guy who works at the grocery store got off his scooter [and] took his jacket off,” said witness Moshe Green. “He put it on her to stop the bleeding.”

When cops arrived, they found Yitty suffering from severe body trauma in the roadway. Medics rushed her to Brooklyn Hospital Center, but she could not be saved.

“It’s a shock, it tears me apart,” Green said. “We’re in the same community. Her father is a teacher in our school.”

The victim’s neighbors were left reeling by the tragedy.

“She was a smiling happy kid,” said a next-door neighbor who declined to give his name. “She was just heading home from school yesterday when it happened,”

“A child is gone, that’s the sad part,” he added. “It’s painful for the family to talk now.”

Karczag was less than a mile from home when he crashed, cops said.

“Sorry, I can’t comment on that,” Karczag told the Daily News Wednesday when asked about the crash.

So far this year, 33 pedestrians have been struck and killed on city streets. Four of those victims were children under the age of 18, according to city Department of Transportation data through Tuesday.

The figure was similar to last year at this time, when 32 pedestrians had died in crashes across the five boroughs.

In all of 2023, 8,619 pedestrians were injured on city streets and 102 were killed, according to Vision Zero data.

With Evan Simko-Bednarski 

Several Israel-bound travelers waiting at Kennedy Airport said they remained resolute after the country’s air defenses intercepted drones and missiles.

“I’m no more concerned than I would be in any other event,” Barry Picker, 71, told The News as he waited for a flight at the airport’s El Al terminal. “I’m in Jerusalem and I like to think it’s safe. My family over there is safe.”

Picker, like several other travelers heading to Israel, said he worried his flight might be canceled.

“I’ve been planning this trip since January. I live in New York, but also stay on Israel from time to time,” he said. “I always have a concern regarding the future, but also as a religious [man], a lot of it is in God’s hands.”

The Iranian attack followed an apparent Israeli strike on an Iranian Consulate in Damascus on April 1 that killed two generals and five officers. It came amid fears of a widening conflict in the region since war broke out between Israel and Hamas six months ago.

Hamas militants launched a coordinated surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government responded with a sustained assault on the Gaza Strip that has killed an estimated more than 30,000 Palestinians over the past six months and left Gaza’s residents isolated, with dwindling access to food, water and health care.

Israel has faced a growing international outcry about the war, along with accusations that its army has recklessly fired on civilians. More than 200 humanitarian workers have been killed in the conflict, according to the UN.

The Israeli military said Friday that it dismissed two officers and reprimanded three others for their roles in drone strikes in Gaza that recently killed seven aid workers on a food-delivery mission, saying they had mishandled critical information and violated the army’s rules of engagement.

The findings of a retired general’s investigation into the April 1 killings of the World Central Kitchen workers marked an embarrassing admission by Israel, which faces growing accusations from key allies, including the U.S., of not doing enough to protect Gaza’s civilians from its war on Hamas.

The findings are likely to bolster widespread skepticism over the Israeli military’s decision-making. Palestinians, aid groups and human rights organizations have repeatedly accused Israeli forces of firing recklessly at civilians throughout the conflict — a charge Israel denies.

Rabbi Mendy Klahr, 27, said he worried about Israeli airspace being shut down because of Iran’s attack, but it turned out his flight wasn’t canceled.

“My family is there, I’m visiting my parents and in-laws. I’m very proud going over there, showing support … the purpose for terrorism is to scare people and they did a little bit, but our job is to win it and show that we are strong,” he told The News.

“This is my first time going back there since October. There’s always something happening when I go back there,” he said.

Another traveler, Jacob Mordechai, suggested divine intervention helped Israel intercept the missiles before they did serious damage, echoing a sentiment repeated by several people at the airport.

“When I first heard about the attacks, all I said was, God is watching,” the 60-year-old said. “I’m not concerned at all, God has been protecting us.”

Moria Ozeri, 61, added, “I don’t know how to feel; we were able to defend ourselves but the attack was alarming.

“On one hand everyone, was in fear and on the other hand, they were praying for a miracle. … There were miracles.”

One man, a 63-year-old New York native who lives in Israel and didn’t give his name, said the attack should spur other nations into action against Iran.

“People aren’t scared, they are resolute,” he said. “The young people are resolute, everyone is resolute. It’s sad because the West doesn’t see that we are slowly seeing the demise of Western civilization.”

With News Wire Services