In the early morning hours of August 26, 2018, Jelan Moreira, a 29-year-old male, was walking through a courtyard in the Ravenswood Houses complex in Long Island City, Queens. It was there that he was tragically gunned down, suffering multiple gunshot wounds to his chest and torso. Emergency services rushed him to a local hospital, but he ultimately succumbed to his injuries.
Moreira was a construction worker and a father to two young children.
The investigation into the senseless shooting led police to identify Shahid Burton, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, as a primary suspect. Video surveillance from the area captured Burton, along with another unidentified individual, approaching Moreira from behind before the fatal shots were fired. For months, Burton remained at large. His run from the law came to an end on March 28, 2019, when he was stopped by a transit officer for jumping a turnstile at the Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue subway station in Jamaica. It was then that the officer discovered Burton was a suspect in Moreira's murder.
In November 2021, Shahid Burton, then 21, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the first degree. Subsequently, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison, which will be followed by five years of post-release supervision. The second individual seen with Burton on the surveillance footage has not been apprehended.
