A gangbanger who got a light sentence for dragging and crippling an NYPD detective in 2017 has been busted for again leading cops on a chase in a stolen car, police sources said.
Justin Murrell, 20 — who was free on bail after a May 2021 car chase in Brooklyn — led Port Authority cops on yet another chase in a stolen vehicle at John F. Kennedy Airport on Feb. 16, the sources said.
Port Authority police found the stolen car a few days later, linked Murrell to it through surveillance video, and tied him to a string of car thefts at LaGuardia and Kennedy airports. They arrested him Monday as he walked out of a Brooklyn courthouse, sources said.
He’s already been released on his own recognizance, court records show, after he was charged with criminal possession of stolen property and other offenses.
The JFK car chase and the May 2021 case are strikingly similar to the fateful 2017 pursuit that forever changed Detective Dalsh Veve’s life, leaving him paralyzed and unable to speak.
“This attempted cop-killer represents everything that is wrong with our justice system right now,” Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said Tuesday. “We tried to warn the city what would happen when he was set free. Every moment he spends free is not only an insult to our hero brother and his family — it is a real danger for New Yorkers.”
Veve was responding to a shots-fired call when he questioned Murrell near E. 53rd St. and Tilden Ave. on June 3, 2017.
Murrell, then 15 years old, hit the gas, reaching up to 60 mph as he dragged Veve for two blocks.
At his trial, Murrell’s lawyer, Natalie Peeples, described him as a wayward teen who allowed things to get out of control and said he never meant to hurt Veve. A jury refused to convict Murrell of attempted murder but found him guilty of assault.
He faced a maximum sentence of 3⅓ to 10 years on that charge; Judge Ruth Shillingford gave him 1⅓ to four years at a juvenile detention center. That left Veve’s wife, prosecutors and police fuming.
Murrell, a reputed member of the G-Stone Crips, went free on parole in March 2020, and finished his parole last June. Before that, however, he was busted on May 23, 2021, after causing a dramatic crash in a stolen car in Brooklyn.
Cops tried to stop Murrell at a red light on New Lots Ave. and Hinsdale St. in East New York but he sped off, then slammed into three parked vehicles, authorities said.
Court records show he was hit with a 33-count indictment after that arrest, and ultimately pleaded guilty to felony assault. It’s not clear if those charges were linked to the crash or a separate incident. He remains free on $25,000 bail as he awaits sentencing May 27.
*story by nydailynews.com