In the early morning hours of July 6, 2014, in the Concord section of Staten Island, New York, a 40-year-old male named Kuwan Collins was tragically killed. He was the second victim in a violent two-day crime spree perpetrated by Tyrell Brown. Less than an hour after murdering another man, Devin Powell, Brown encountered Collins on Britton Avenue. There, at approximately 5:00 a.m., Brown robbed Collins of his cash before fatally shooting him in the head.
Following the murder of Kuwan
Collins, Tyrell Brown's violent rampage continued. About an hour later, he committed a carjacking, robbing a 29-year-old man at gunpoint and stealing his black Hummer. The next day, authorities spotted the stolen Hummer as Brown attempted to drive it over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. A dramatic chase ensued, during which Brown crashed through a toll barrier and struck another vehicle. He abandoned the damaged Hummer and fled into a wooded area, managing to elude capture for a short time by committing another armed robbery, this time of a livery cab driver.
Law enforcement officials apprehended Tyrell Brown on the evening of July 8, 2014, in the Mariners Harbor area of Staten Island, bringing his crime spree to an end. He was subsequently charged with a litany of offenses, including the murders of both Kuwan Collins and Devin Powell. In May 2016, a jury found Tyrell Brown guilty on two counts of murder for the killings. The following month, he was sentenced to life in prison for the murders, with an additional 25 years for the robbery of the Hummer. An appeal in 2020 resulted in the dismissal of lesser second-degree murder charges on technical grounds, but the first-degree murder convictions and the life sentence were upheld.
