Shooting suspect son of murder victim
Teen faces felony charges in Wednesday case, testified for prosecution after 2018 Ulster killing
KINGSTON, N.Y. » A 19-year- old city resident charged with assault and criminal weapons possession in the shooting of a 21-year- old man on Elmendorf Street was a witness for the prosecution last year at the trial of one of the men convicted of killing his father after a drug deal went bad.
Jahsi M. Quiles was charged Wednesday with felony assault and misdemeanor criminal possession of a weapon in the Elmendorf Street shooting, police said. It was not immediately clear whether Quiles was the “person of interest” police said they had in custody shortly after the shooting Wednesday.
Quiles was to be arraigned in City Court Thursday morning, according to Chief Clerk Nicole Murphy, but he was not at the Ulster County Jail Thursday afternoon and his status was unavailable.
Quiles was the son of Mark
Lancaster, who was fatally shot on Sawkill Road in the town of Ulster on Dec. 1, 2018, and he was a witness for the prosecution at the lone murder trial that arose from the killing.
In the Elmendorf Street case, Kingston police, state police and Ulster County Sheriff’s deputies responded about 2:25 p.m. Wednesday to a reported shooting on the block between Broad
way and Belvedere Street.
Police said the victim was shot in the left leg and back while walking on Elmendorf Street, and that he managed to run to a familiar residence. He then was taken to HealthAlliance Hospital’s Broadway Campus in Kingston and later transferred to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, where he was in stable condition Thursday morning.
Police have not provided the name of the shooting victim or said what the motive for the attack might have been.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the Kingston Police Department at (845) 3311671 or its tips line at (845) 331-4499. All calls will be kept confidential.
On Thursday, Ulster County District Attorney David Clegg confirmed that Quiles was Lancaster’s son. He said it “was possible” that drugs were involved in Wednesday’s shooting, “but I can’t speculate . ... The back story is something I don’t know.”
At the 2019 trial of murder suspect Maurice Stansberry Sr., Quiles said he was on Sawkill Road on Dec. 1, 2018, when his father was fatally shot.
Quiles, who was 18 at the time, testified that he, Lancaster and his friend Sebastian Lynch had gone to the Sawkill Trailer Park to sell marijuana. Quiles said in court that he got 2 ounces of marijuana from his father, who drove him and Lynch to the trailer park, and that when he got there, he met with two of the three men later convicted in connection with the fatal shooting.
During that interaction, Maurice Stansberry Sr. pulled a gun out, racked it and “pointed it at me,” Quiles testified.
Quiles said he and Lynch then went back to Lancaster’s car, and Stansberry Sr. and Kevin Gardener ran to Maurice Stansberry Jr.’s car.
Quiles testified that he told his father what happened and that Lancaster got angry. He said his father gave chase in his vehicle and, on Sawkill Road, got in front of Stansberry Jr.’s car and forced it to stop. Quiles said Lancaster and Lynch then got out of the vehicle and approached Stansberry Jr.’s car, where a dispute about the marijuana ensued.
It was at that point that Quiles’ father was fatally shot.
While he did not see the shooting, Quiles testified he saw Stansberry Sr. pull the gun out and rack it again.
Stansberry Sr. was convicted of second-degree murder. Gardener pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and Stansberry Jr. was allowed to plead guilty to felony robbery in exchange for testifying against his father.
Kingston police did not return calls Thursday about the Elmendorf Street case, and Clegg said he could not draw any conclusions about whether there was a connection between the 2018 case and this week’s shooting.
“I’m not on the inside of this investigation yet,” Clegg said.
Wednesday’s shooting was the latest in a yearlong run of gun violence in Kingston, including four homicides, one incident in which two teens suffered leg wounds, and numerous cases of shots being fired but not striking anyone.
There has been an arrest in one of the homicides but not any of the other cases.
There was a lull in the gunfire for about two months, starting in early August, after city police, county sheriff’s deputies and state troopers stepped up patrols in Kingston. But there then were four incidents of shots being fired in a span of five days at the beginning of this month, though no one was struck in any of those cases.