Police have arrested a pair of Long Island teens for the senseless shooting murder of a 15-year-old boy after the youths engaged in a deadly display of adolescent bravado that started when the alleged killers heckled a cab driver.
Rahmell Daniel, 17, was picked up Thursday and charged with the murder of Edwin Machado, 15, of Hicksville, according to Nassau Homicide Squad commander Detective Lt. Dennis Farrell.
Daniel’s cohort, 18-year-old Steven Rice, was arrested yesterday and charged with criminal possession of a weapon. Both suspects are from Amityville.
The youths were hanging out at the Hicksville LIRR station with friends when Daniel and Rice began mocking and harassing a cab driver, who had pulled up and asked if anyone had called a cab, cops said.
When Machado tried to intervene, Daniel pulled a pistol and shot him once in the chest, killing him instantly, said Farrell.
Police said the gun belonged to Rice, who gave it to Daniel earlier in the day.
Machado was laid to rest yesterday at an emotion-filled funeral at St. Kilian’s Roman Catholic Church in Farmingdale, where the Rev. Angelo Resultay lamented the fact that many young people “do not know how to solve their problems peacefully.”
Resultay said it’s disturbing that when youths are angered, they seek “revenge, they shoot, strike back – but Christ says turn the other cheek.”