An 18-year-old Brooklyn man accused of gunning down 16-year-old Tyson “TJ” Harps Jr. outside a Crown Heights apartment building last November is due in Brooklyn Supreme Court Tuesday, nearly a year after the teen's murder set off a manhunt that stretched into Georgia. Makhai Johnson now faces second-degree murder and weapons charges in connection with the shooting that killed Harps, a Bronx high schooler and football player who had traveled to Brooklyn to see friends.
A Fatal Night on Eastern Parkway
Harps was shot around 8:45 p.m. on Nov. 1, 2025, outside the Pauline Court apartment building at 1196 Eastern Parkway near Rochester Avenue, where neighbors reported hearing three gunshots, according to News12 Bronx. Police found him with a gunshot wound to the head, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. The address sits near the border of Crown Heights and East New York, within the NYPD's 71st Precinct, which also covers Wingate and Prospect Lefferts Gardens, as Norwood News reported.
Harps lived on Park Avenue in the Bronx's Melrose section and had recently been accepted into Independence High School, where he was also a linebacker for the Bronx Justice League youth football team, per the same outlet's reporting. He had gone to Brooklyn that night to visit friends. In the weeks that followed, his family, teammates and coaches remembered him as a talented athlete with a bright future, and loved ones held vigils, memorial events and a tribute football game in his honor while urging anyone with information to come forward.
A Funeral and a Search for Answers
On Nov. 15, 2025, mourners gathered for Harps' funeral at Owens Funeral Home on Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, releasing 16 white doves and balloons to mark his 16 years of life, the Norwood News reported. The service took place two weeks after the murder, with the shooter still unidentified. Days earlier, on Nov. 6, investigators had released surveillance video showing a suspect walking near the crime scene while looking at a mobile phone, wearing blue jeans, sneakers, and a dark bomber jacket over a grey hooded sweatshirt — the only public clue available before the eventual arrest.
The case remained open for nearly seven months. Then, on May 27, 2026, 18-year-old Brooklyn resident Makhai Johnson was located and arrested in Georgia, ending the interstate manhunt before he was extradited to New York, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office. He now faces formal grand jury charges of second-degree murder and two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon in Kings County Supreme Court, a Class A-I felony that carries a potential sentence of 25 years to life.
Court Appearance Scheduled in Brooklyn
Johnson was scheduled to appear in Brooklyn Supreme Court Tuesday. As News12 New York first reported on the manhunt's end, details of Johnson's apprehension in Georgia and any established motive have not been disclosed.
A Killing Amid Historic Drops in Gun Violence
Harps' death came during a period when gun violence across Brooklyn and the city was falling to record lows. Shooting incidents in Crown Heights dropped by 46% in 2025, according to annual data from the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, as the borough recorded its lowest annual total of murders and shootings in recorded history, with double-digit declines also reported in neighboring East New York and Brownsville. Citywide, 2025 marked the fewest total shooting incidents and shooting victims ever recorded, according to CBS New York, with officials crediting targeted precision policing and illegal firearm seizures for the drop. Even against that backdrop, the killing of a 16-year-old visiting friends in Crown Heights underscored how gun violence involving teenagers remains a painful exception to the broader trend.
