Boy, 16, shot to death by 2 gunmen on Razor scooters in Harlem

A 16-year-old boy was shot to death on a Harlem street corner by a pair of gunmen on Razor scooters early Thursday, cops said.
Clarence Jones was shot in the torso near W. 124th St. and Lenox Ave. about 1:30 a.m., cops said. Medics rushed the teen to Harlem Hospital but he couldn’t be saved.
The boy was about nine blocks from home when he was shot, according to cops.
“We don’t know what happened. We don’t know about target. We know somebody killed our nephew. They just took his life senselessly. He was only 16,” said Desiree Murray, 59, who identified herself as a paternal aunt and lives in the close-knit apartment building where Clarence lived with his father.
Police have yet to establish a motive for the killing, but the victim was on probation for a case involving at least one robbery in which it’s believed he displayed a gun, and was a suspect in another armed robbery that took place in 2023 two blocks from his home.
In that case, which nobody has been arrested in, four crooks entered a store, jumped over the security glass and removed currency from the cash register, with one of the robbers brandishing a gun.
The victim had numerous other prior arrests.
Clarence’s aunt said the teen had gotten caught up with a bad crowd but had goals for a different life.
“He was a good kid,” Murray said. “Kids get into stuff. Kids do stuff. But overall he was a sweetheart.”
“His plan was to go to school, do the right thing and make a life for himself,” she added. “He wanted to go to school, do good and make something of himself. [His life] was cut short.”
A stray bullet blasted through the window of a passing Toyota Camry, hitting the 51-year-old livery driver’s headrest.
The driver continued to W. 116th St., where he called police. He suffered an ear injury but it wasn’t clear if he was grazed by the stray slug, struck by breaking glass or hurt some other way as he dodged the bullet. The driver was treated at Mount Sinai West.
A woman who happened to be on the block when the murder took place ran over after she heard the gunshots and saw the teenage victim and the suspects afterward.
“I was under the scaffolding, and two guys rode by on scooters,” said the 50-year-old woman, who did not provide her name. “They was all dressed in all black — hoodies, masks, everything.”
“CJ — everybody called him CJ — was lying there on his back by the bank. He was shot,” the woman said. “The guys who did it was gone.
“What am I supposed to feel?” she asked. “This is like every day. I can’t feel nothing.”
The two shooters, wearing black Nike hoodies and gray pants, fled west on W. 124th St. on Razor scooters and have not been caught. Three shell casings were recovered from the scene.
Another neighbor who identified herself as an aunt said Clarence was more like her son.
“It’s unbelievable. It’s heartbreaking,” said Tennille House, 48. “It’s just too much as a parent. Nobody ever wants to get that phone call. No parent should have to bury their child. Anytime your phone rings at 1, 2, 3 in the morning it’s never good news.”
By late afternoon, a memorial to Clarence had grown in the rear of his building to include photographs of the teen, handwritten messages and two silver balloons — one in the shape of the letter C and the other a J.
Alicia Cox, another neighbor who identified herself as an aunt, said the building was devastated.
“It’s senseless and the gun violence has to stop,” Cox said. “As a building, as a block, we’re all very united. We as tenants, we all look out for each other. And then this bogus mayor that says crime is down, there is no crime, the gun violence is so low. But it’s constantly happening over and over and over again and we’re sick. I’m sick of seeing mothers cry over their dead children.”