A fugitive wanted on a murder charge stepped off his flight from Jamaica into the arms of authorities who have been hunting for him since he was identified as a suspect in the shooting death of a Queens gang member inside a deli, police said Friday.
Damion Howell, 39, was busted at JFK airport Thursday and charged with murder and gun possession.
He was identified in January as the triggerman in the Aug. 5 shooting of Gorilla Stone Nation member Julian Askew, 29, outside a deli on Waltham St. near Tuskegee Airmen Way in Jamaica.
Howell and an accomplice confronted the victim inside the deli, police said. As they walked outside, the accomplice stepped away and Howell pulled out a .40 caliber handgun and fired one shot into Askew’s chest.
The gunman then hopped into a gray sedan driven by the accomplice and the two of them fled, police said.
The victim was rushed to Jamaica Medical Center and was later released. He was home recovering when he took a turn for the worse on Nov. 14 and was rushed to Queens Hospital, where he died.
Askew’s uncle at the time said Askew was partially paralyzed by the gunshot and that blood clots in his legs lead to an aneurysm.
“Everyone around here is walking around with guns,” lamented the uncle, Ramadan Askew, 60. “This is obviously a social problem no one wants to address. It was another senseless death.”
The motive for the shooting is still not clear.
Askew had been arrested five times, including twice for robbery and once for weapons possession. Records show he was paroled in March 2021 after doing nearly three years for assault. Before that he was conditionally released in February 2015 after serving more than a year for attempted robbery.
Howell, police said, was arrested in a 1999 murder case, though it was not immediately clear what came of that charge. He also has arrests that have been sealed.
After he was identified as the shooter, police said, authorities flagged him. On Thursday, police got word he was on his way to JFK…
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