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Every day the Raise the Age law stands is another day of mourning for Julia Verona, whose 14-year-old son was fatally stabbed outside a McDonald’s in Queens, allegedly by another teen.
The law changed how teens are treated in New York’s criminal justice system, increasing the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18, often funneling more violent cases to the state’s family courts and resulting in reduced sentences when compared to adult suspects.
The teens involved in the brawl that resulted in her son Julian Corniell’s death are still in the neighborhood, she said.
“I have to go to therapy for that every Saturday because it makes me very angry,” Verona told The Post. “They’re still outside, I’ve seen them with my own eyes. They still go to that McDonald’s like nothing ever happened.”
“They should change [the law] – they should make it more serious, because these kids are out there continuing to do the same thing,” Verona said.
Verona, 36, said she wished the name of her son’s alleged 16-year-old killer would be released, and that the rest of the teens present would face some kind of consequence.
“The way that family court takes care of things…it’s not serious enough. They have more protections for these criminals.”
In July 2022, 11-year-old Kyhara Tay was shot and killed outside a nail salon in the Bronx by two teens on a moped — with then 18-year-old Omar Bojang driving and then 15-year-old Matthew Godwin pulling the trigger, authorities said.
The two were looking for a rival, 13-year-old gang member when they killed Kyhara, whose parents slammed the Raise the Age law as having protected Bojang, who had a previous rap sheet that included gun-related incidents.
Godwin was sentenced in April to 10 years to life behind bars, while Bojang was sentenced to 15 years in May.
“You were carrying a gun as an adult, trying to kill someone as an adult, then you should be charged as an adult,” Kyhara’s devastated mom, Yahisha Gomez, told The Post.
“Just a little slap on the wrist and they are coming out thinking they could commit more crimes. They know the consequences are not as severe…they don’t think about the family,” dad Sokpini Tay said.
Yanely Henriquez lost her 16-year-old daughter Angellyh Yambo on April 8, 2022, when 17-year-old Jeremiah Ryan opened fire with a ghost gun on the street in the Bronx as University Prep Charter High School, where Yambo was a straight-A student, let out.
Yambo was caught in the crossfire and shot in the back. Ryan was sentenced in September 2023 to 15 years to life.
“If you commit a crime, you must be [treated as] an adult,” the mom demanded.
“This is why these kids are doing whatever they want, because they know they are just getting a slap on their hands. If you have a gun to use, you need to be an adult and face the consequences for your actions.”
Here are examples of teenagers allegedly killed by other teenagers so far in 2025:
Times Square shooting
A 17-year-old allegedly opened fire in Times Square last week, striking three people — including an 18-year-old tourist from Maryland as she rode in an Uber with her siblings and parents, according to police. The bullet grazed the tourist’s neck.
“We heard gunshots,” the teen victim’s mom later told The Post. “My daughter was holding her neck. She was bleeding…It’s a very horrific experience.”
The accused gunman, identified as Jayden Clarke, had gotten into an argument with a Citibike rider inside of the Raising Cane’s restaurant on Broadway around 1 a.m. on Aug. 9, and decided to settle the beef by leaving the eatery and opening fire, according to police sources.
Cops recovered a .380-caliber Glock 42 from his waistband at the scene. Clarke pleaded not guilty to two counts of attempted murder, three counts of assault and reckless endangerment and weapons charges and was ordered held on $200,000 bail.
Bronx beatdown
On Aug. 5, two young teens — just 15-and 16-years-old — were arrested and charged with murder and gang assault in the vicious beating and fatal stabbing of Angel Mendoza, a 14-year-old who was hanging with friends at the Williamsbridge Oval Playground in Norwood.
Cell phone video taken by the boy’s suspected attackers shows the pack zeroing in on him before smashing him “in the face with a Taurus 9mm pistol” and then repeatedly striking and kicking him on “his head, face and body,” according to court documents and police sources.
The two teens, among four suspects arrested in Mendoza’s killing, have not been identified because of their ages, and will likely be tried in the youth part of Bronx Criminal Court.
Andrew Ansah and Jordan Williams, both 18, were charged with the same raps in the case. They will be tried in Bronx Criminal Court. Mendoza was not in a gang and had no previous run-ins with police, said his family, who hid his shoes to keep him home and out of trouble.
Stray bullet slaying
A 14-year-old gang member allegedly opened fire near a Morrisania schoolyard around 5 p.m. on May 12 — killing 16-year-old Evette Jeffrey as she rode her scooter, authorities said.
The babyfaced gunman is believed to have fired his weapon after a fistfight broke out between his friends and rival gangbangers as they left the Bronx playground at 800 Home Street.
Evette had celebrated her first anniversary with her boyfriend, also 16, with a date at a Chinese buffet, relatives said. The young couple were on their way home when the gunshots rang out, with a bullet striking her in the head.
Her accused killer, who authorities said had already racked up a previous assault charge on his rap sheet, pleaded not guilty to a second-degree murder charge and was ordered held without bail.
Evette’s grandmother told The Post she would “never forgive” the alleged teen killer.
“I hold your family responsible because they should be watching you,” she sobbed.
McDonald’s stabbing
An after school brawl among a large group of teens on Valentine’s Day ended in tragedy in Sunnyside, when Julian Corniell, 14, was fatally stabbed at a McDonald’s on Queens Boulevard.
A 16-year-old was charged with murder for allegedly whipping out a knife and plunging it into the left side of Corniell’s torso. The boy collapsed and later died at Weill Cornell Medical Center, while his alleged killer was held without bail in March.
Julia Verona described her only son as a “brilliant” and “very fun little boy,” who loved to play video games and soccer.
Coney Island murderA 13-year-old boy with at least one prior arrest for assault was charged with second-degree murder as an adult for the January 2023 stabbing of a 17-year-old in Brooklyn’s Coney Island.
Nyheem Wright was killed in front of his twin brother in a parking lot, during an after-school fight over a girl, police said.
The suspect was charged as a “juvenile offender,” a component of the Raise the Age law which results in a maximum sentence of nine years to life if convicted of the top charges — compared to an adult, who in the same circumstance could get a max of 25 years to life.
Another two teens were arrested at the time, one 15 and one as young as 14, for their role in the slaying.
Nyheem’s mother, Simone Brooks, told The Post his stricken sibling, Raheem, “stayed with his twin brother the whole time,” trying to help him — before watching him die.
