Juvenile charged in gang-related shooting death, police say

A juvenile has been arrested and charged in the gang-related shooting that killed a teenager in Central Islip on Aug. 7, Suffolk police said.

Police declined to release other details of the arrest, including the age and gender, saying the court process is sealed.

The 15-year-old victim, who police have not named, was in a heavily wooded area behind a temple on East Suffolk Avenue with three other young males when they were approached by two other males, police said.

The four young males ran in different directions, police said. Two of them ran to a nearby 7-Eleven store and called 911 around 3:45 a.m. to say shots had been fired, authorities had said.

Homicide detectives said the victim, a local resident, was found shot in the woods and pronounced dead at the scene.

A law enforcement source at the time said the killing had “earmarks” of an MS-13 killing. In the last decade, authorities have attributed at least 50 killings, some of which have occurred in wooded areas in Suffolk and Nassau counties, to the brutal street gang.

This would be the first homicide linked to MS-13 in Suffolk County since four teenage boys were slaughtered with machetes in a Central Islip park in April 2017, though police last year discovered remains of an MS-13 victim they believe was killed in 2015.