SENSELESS:Crips member Iloune Driver, 19, being taken out of the 60th Precinct station house yesterday, is charged in the murder of Tysha Jones, pictured here just before she was shot Thursday at Brighton Beach. (
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A teenage gangbanger yesterday was busted in the boardwalk shootout that left a pretty 16-year-old girl dead in Brooklyn last week.
Iloune Driver, 19, of East New York was nabbed working at his job at a Checkers drive-in on Pennsylvania Avenue in his neighborhood Sunday night after being ID’d for cops by witnesses to the Brighton Beach melee, which also left four wounded.
“It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me,” Driver whined to reporters, shaking his head, as he was led from the NYPD’s 60th Precinct station house in cuffs on his way to Brooklyn Criminal Court for an arraignment hearing yesterday afternoon.
Driver, who was picked out of a lineup by witnesses at the station house, was charged with murder and assault with intent to cause serious physical injury.
The suspect, a member of the Crips gang with nine prior busts for gun, drug and robbery charges, was one of two gunmen who opened fire in Thursday’s wild fight, cops said.
It was the hottest day of the year and the beach was packed with students home from school for Brooklyn-Queens Day.
Tysha Jones, an innocent bystander from East Harlem, was killed by a stray bullet that struck her under her left arm as she sat on a bench with friends.
Three young men with her were wounded — including the one who took the photo of her above — as was a diner at the boardwalk’s Tatiana restaurant.
Cops are still hunting for the second gunmen.
Jones’ heartbroken mom, Cynthia, learned of the arrest as grieving family and friends visited her fourth-floor apartment on Lexington Avenue to offer condolences and help plan the popular teen’s funeral.
“I’m happy, but it’s not going to bring her back. I want justice served,” Jones said, while blasting cops for not doing more to keep illegal guns off the streets.
“They so worried about someone smoking a cigarette when they should have been looking for guns,” she said, referring to Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on smoking in public places.
As she tearfully flipped through photos of Tysha that the girl’s fifth-grade teacher had just dropped off, the dead teen’s grandmother, Catherine Jones, welled up with tears, too.
She was staring at a more recent photo of Tysha — taken shortly before the gunfire rang out Thursday.
“They showed a picture of her playing in the water, she looked so happy,” the grandmother said.
Anthony Jones, the victim’s older brother, vowed to faithfully follow the case in court.
“I’m glad they caught him, I just want to have my day in court with him,” he said.
Driver was arraigned last night in Brooklyn Criminal Court but any bail application was postponed until Friday, when he will be represented by another lawyer. Cops think the shooting resulted from a fight minutes earlier in which someone broke a bottle over another man’s head and another person was struck with an umbrella.
Driver was involved in the earlier scuffle and was out for revenge, police sources said.
Additional reporting by Lorena Mongelli, Jamie Schram, John Doyle
and Jessica Simeone