Suspect, 19, questioned in fatal shooting of Soho teen peacemaker: NYPD sources

NYPD cops have apprehended a 19-year-old man they believe was involved in the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old boy who was killed trying to deescalate a tense standoff in SoHo last week, police sources said.

The teen was being questioned Friday morning. No charges were immediately filed as detectives requested a search warrant for the suspect’s Harlem home, a police source with knowledge of the case said.

A second suspect involved in the fatal shooting remained at large, cops said.

Victim Mahki Brown  was in the courtyard of the luxury Dominick Hotel on Spring St. near Varick St. on May 7 when he tried to stop a fight between three teenage girls, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said last week.

“Our victim [was] playing peacemaker here,” Kenny said.

The dispute that sparked the shooting occurred a day earlier between two teen girls who attend Mahki’s charter school, the Broome Street Academy.

The two girls fought and went their separate ways Monday but decided to renew their clash, this time with a third girl in tow, outside the Dominick Hotel, Kenny said.

“They start to have a verbal dispute but cooler heads prevail,” Kenny said. “One of the girl’s brothers steps in to say, ‘Hey, there’s not going to be a fight today. My sister’s not fighting anybody.’ He stands up for his sister and says she’s not fighting.”

That’s when one of the other girls called her brother — the gunman, police said.

“The third girl says ‘Oh, you have your brother, I’m gonna call my brother.’ She makes a phone call and two males, unidentified, show up to the scene on a Citi Bike,” Kenny said.

One of the suspects was pedaling the Citi Bike. The other “was sitting in the basket,” Kenny said.

One of the men on the Citi Bike then pulled a .380-caliber pistol and started shooting into a group of about 30 teens that had gathered, Kenny said.

Mahki, of Queens, was hit as he tried to step between the gunman and the teenage girl’s brother, Kenny said. He was not the intended target.

He was trying to defend the teenage girl and her brother when he was shot but “from speaking to the mother, he’s the kind of guy that would have stepped in to help anybody,” Kenny said.

The two suspects fled on the Citi Bike. It’s believed that at least one of the two suspects has gang ties.

“The motive itself is going to be a dispute,” Kenny said about the shooting. “It’s going to be teenage nonsense over a staredown.”