‘Mentally disturbed’ teen ID’d as person of interest in random stabbing of NYC activist: sources
A “mentally disturbed” 18-year-old man has been identified as a person of interest in the random stabbing murder of a beloved Brooklyn social-justice activist and poet, police sources said Wednesday.
Investigators believe that the man seen on video ruthlessly knifing community advocate Ryan Carson, 32, in front of his girlfriend could be a teenager who lives just down the block from where the horrific slaying took place early Monday.
He has not yet been arrested.
Police officials confirmed Wednesday that they had identified a suspect but did not publicly name him.
Investigators are working on establishing “probable cause to make this arrest,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said during an unrelated press conference.
Sources said the teen works at a high school in Clinton Hill and is known to frequent the area of Commodore Barry Park in Fort Greene.
It’s not clear if he has a juvenile record, as those cases would be sealed. He was issued three summonses in 2022, two of them for disorderly conduct, and was the victim of a robbery in 2021, the sources said.
About two months ago, his aunt called 911 to report that her nephew — whom she described as mentally disturbed — had become irate and smashed items in his girlfriend’s apartment after a fight.
He was not arrested in that July 14 incident but an incident report was filed, the sources said.
Investigators believe the attacker may again have been arguing with his girlfriend before he randomly lashed out at Carson – a complete stranger who happened to be in his path — leading to his violent end.
“The person that did the stabbing was seen on the corner with a female acting very agitated prior to the stabbing,” Kenny noted.
At around 4 a.m. on Monday, Carson, a longtime campaign organizer for the New York Public Interest Research Group, was with his girlfriend, heading back to her home after attending a wedding, when the couple stopped to chat at the B38 bus stop at Lafayette Avenue and Malcolm X Boulevard in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
A man then approached up the road, according to surveillance video obtained by The Post. The couple stood and began to walk when they saw the suspect — about 40 feet ahead of them — kicking and damaging mopeds and scooters that were parked on the sidewalk, according to officials and surveillance footage.
Suddenly, the madman turned around and yelled, “What the f–k are you looking at?”
“Mr. Carson then immediately places himself between the man and his female companion to protect her,” before attempting to “de-escalate” the situation, Kenny told reporters Wednesday.
The pair grappled as the suspect repeated “I’ll kill you!” and Carson told him to calm down, before the unhinged man pulled a knife, the video shows.
Carson began to back up and tried to run in the direction the couple had just come from — before tumbling over the bench they had earlier been sitting on.
“The unidentified male then stabs Mr. Carson three times, striking him once in the right chest,” Kenny said. “The knife pierces Mr. Carson’s heart, causing his death.”
“As Mr. Carson lay dying on the sidewalk, the male with the knife kicks him in the chest, threatens to stab the woman companion and spits in her face.”
A woman believed to be the assailant’s girlfriend yelled at him to stop — “and apologizes to the couple as she mutters the name Brian,” according to Kenny.
Carson’s girlfriend held her mortally wounded beau in her arms, and called 911. Carson was rushed to Kings County Hospital Center, but couldn’t be saved.
“It’s a horrific, brutal murder of someone who worked piously to help make this city a better place,” Carson’s roommate Tom Krantz, 31, previously told The Post.
“He’s really . . . like the epicenter of an entire community that he created, that he brought together,” Krantz said, adding it was remarkable “how much he actually did for the entire city and for his friends.”
“I don’t think anyone is exaggerating when they say he would give the shirt off his back,” his roommate said. “He was the guy that bent over backward time and time again to be there with his friends.”
Carson moved to New York City from the Boston area to attend the Pratt Institute in 2010. During his 13 years in the city, he became an outspoken activist for the environment and sustainability, Krantz said, and had a knack for rallying people around a cause.
A former classmate of Carson’s, Acadia Cutschall, 32, said he was her “best friend,” and recalled a time he was able to persuade a mugger not to rob him.
“I was present once when he literally talked a guy out of mugging him,” she said. “He gave him some money.”
She said Carson would probably have tried to help out the man who killed him, if he’d been given the chance, and that if he could speak about his own death, he wouldn’t make it about himself.
“It wouldn’t be about him,” said Krantz. “It would be about trying to solve what’s going on.”
The morning after his slaying, Carson’s girlfriend, Claudia, shared a heart-wrenching note she found written in his phone.
“When you get right down to it, all I want is to love Claudia more than she’s ever been loved, which is frankly all she’s ever deserved,” he wrote, according to a screenshot she posted to X.
“I found this note in Ryan’s phone,” she wrote in the post. “He did, he did, he did.”
