A 14-year-old Brooklyn youth paid with his life last night in a battle over his scoring at a junior-high-school basketball game, police said.
Soon after Michael Bennett made his last shot in the game at Jackie Robinson Intermediate School, his body was found on the street in front of a nearby gas station at 115 Empire Blvd. in Crown Heights.
Police sources said Bennett had been the high scorer in the game against the Walt Whitman School, which Bennett’s team defeated.
The game – played as part of a Board of Education night-league schedule – ended at 9 p.m.
Cops believe that Bennett remained for a while at the school, where he was confronted by his attackers. He was chased out of the building and ran several blocks before collapsing. It was not immediately clear if the atack began at the school or if the entire attack took place on the street where he died.
Police said he was smashed in the head with a hammer and stabbed in the chest with a screwdriver.
Bennett’s sister was the game’s official scorekeeper, police said.
“There was a dispute over the score,” a police source said. “They [Whitman fans] felt the high scorer’s sister may have inflated the score and his points.”
Bennett was taken to Kings County Hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.
Police said they took a 16-year-old suspect into custody. They also recovered a hammer and screwdriver at the scene.
Schools Chancellor Rudy Crew rushed to the hospital and told Bennett’s mother what had happened.
The mother, who was not identified, was “disconsolate,” said Board of Ed spokeswoman Chiara Coletti.
Crew ordered school employees to go home with the mother to do their best to console her.
“He was very broken up,” Coletti said.