On a bright Saturday afternoon, June 17, 2017, Keith Vereen, a 46-year-old man, was going about the mundane task of pumping gas into his truck at a BP station in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. The gas station, located at the busy intersection of Atlantic and Utica Avenues, became the scene of a sudden and brutal act of violence that would end Vereen's life. As he stood by his vehicle, a man approached him, pressed a gun to his chest, and fired a single, fatal shot.
The shooter and an accomplice then fled the scene in a silver Infiniti. Emergency services rushed Vereen to a nearby hospital, but his injuries were too severe, and he was pronounced dead.
The brazen daylight shooting was captured on the gas station's surveillance cameras, providing investigators with crucial evidence. The footage showed the assailant, wearing a black hoodie with a cigarette in his mouth, commit the crime. Police released images of the two men to the public in the hopes of identifying them. A critical mistake by the shooter, however, would lead directly to his capture. In the midst of the attack, he dropped his cell phone at the scene. DNA evidence recovered from the phone ultimately identified the gunman as Andre Rodriguez, a 31-year-old resident of the nearby Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.
Following his arrest, Andre Rodriguez was charged with the murder of Keith Vereen. During the trial, prosecutors presented the compelling surveillance video and the DNA evidence linking him to the crime. On January 28, 2019, a jury found Rodriguez guilty of second-degree murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon. A few weeks later, on February 21, 2019, a Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice sentenced him to 21 years to life in prison. The conviction brought a measure of justice to Vereen's devastated family, though the motive for the senseless killing remained unclear, with initial police sources suggesting it may have been a botched robbery.
