Cops: We know who killed hotel worker in 2021

Police have identified a suspect in the nearly year-old killing of a hotel worker who helped the city’s frontline medical responders during the height of the COVID pandemic.

Deion King, 20, has been named by the NYPD as the man who shot Keyshawn Cureton, 21, during an argument on W. 136th St. and Lenox Ave. in Harlem on June 27, 2021. Cureton was hit several times and died at Harlem Hospital.

Cops found eight shell casings on the scene, police said.

Cureton, who grew up in the neighborhood but had moved to the Bronx with his mother, was shot during an ongoing turf war between crews that operate on W. 136th St. and W. 139th St. although there was no evidence that he was part of either crew, police sources with knowledge of the case said.

It was not immediately disclosed how King was identified as the one who killed Cureton.

Shortly after the shooting, cops took a suspect into custody, but the man was never charged. A day later, cops released surveillance images of two men involved in the killing and asked for help in tracking them down.

“He didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve to be shot like that,” his mother Joanna Cureton tearfully told the Daily News after the crime..

“He was working in hotels for doctors and nurses, making sure they’re good,” his sister Latoya Cureton remembered. “My brother took that job on. That’s all he was doing this whole year, he was putting himself out there. That goes to say even more about his character.”

Cureton didn’t live the kind of life that prepared his family for his violent death, his kin said.

“My brother didn’t have an ill bone in his body,” his sister said. “Anybody that met my brother, they got a good vibe off of him.”

Police released a mug shot of King (below) in the hopes someone can help track him down.

Anyone with information regarding his whereabouts was urged to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.