Killing tied to ‘snitch’ label

Prosecutor: Siblings hired shooter to kill fellow gang member

ALBANY — An Albany County prosecutor told jurors Wednesday that two siblings enlisted a teenage hitman to execute 30-year-old Christopher Bryant outside a Madison Avenue bodega in 2022 because the victim was identifying one of the brothers as a “snitch.”

The siblings, Jordan Mckenzie and Justin Walker, on trial before County Judge Andra Ackerman, allegedly served as wheelmen to transport then-17year-old Roland Riggins to and from the crime scene on April 29, 2022. That’s when Riggins, armed with a .40 caliber handgun, admittedly shot Bryant in the head outside the store at Madison Avenue and Grand Street at about 11:45 p.m.

Mckenzie, 24, known as “Butta,” and Walker, 28, known as “Jigga,” as well as Bryant, known as “Bris,” were all identified in court papers as members of the Bloods street gang. If convicted of second-degree murder and conspiracy charges, Mckenzie and Walker face 25 years to life in prison.

In a nearly 15-minute opening statement, Assistant District Attorney Ryan Carty told jurors that Bryant earned the brothers’ wrath when he shared information with other people about Walker’s status in 2015 as a confidential Albany police informant. Exchanges of text messages between Mckenzie and Walker included photos of documents that identified Walker “as not just a confidential informant but a snitch,” the prosecutor said.

“The evidence in this case will show that while Roland Riggins is the one who pulled the trigger, he did not act alone,” said Carty, who is prosecuting the case with Assistant District Attorney Jessica Blain-lewis. “Jordan

Mckenzie and Justin Walker not only provided him the motive, but they provided him the means. They provided him the opportunity. And they used Roland Riggins to kill Christopher Bryant.”

Bryant had been serving a 10-year sentence for weapon possession, menacing and assault when on Dec. 30, 2021, the state’s second-highest court reversed his conviction. In a 3-2 ruling, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court determined that when Bryant allegedly threatened his alleged victim by telling her to “do the right thing,” leading her to not testify out of fear, it did not meet the legal threshold to allow the trial judge to let the woman’s grand jury testimony to be used in her absence.

Less than four months after that decision, Bryant was dead.

On the night he was killed, Mckenzie, Walker and others were allegedly in Walker’s apartment on Columbia Street. Carty said city surveillance cameras captured the shooting as well as the movements of Mckenzie, Walker and Riggins, now 19, who has since pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is expected to testify for prosecutors. The defendants allegedly traveled in separate cars, Walker following Mckenzie. to the area near the shooting where Mckenzie, according to Carty, circled the block to identify Bryant for Riggins.

“That entire time, when this plan was taking shape … Justin Walker was there in the area to watch, to hear and to make sure that this got done,” the prosecutor said. He said Walker used his cellphone to stay in contact with Mckenzie and Riggins.

Carty said Mckenzie dropped off the shooter, who walked over and fired the deadly bullets. He said Riggins ran up Madison Avenue and got back into Mckenzie’s car. Walker then flagged the car down, he said, and Riggins got into Walker’s vehicle to flee the scene.

Assistant Alternate Public Defender John Spencer, the attorney for Walker, told jurors it was public knowledge that his client had been a police informant in 2015. He said his client’s alleged motive made no sense.

“There are no secrets in the streets — people talk,” Spencer told the jury. “There is no motive for Mr. Walker to have this man killed, to keep that secret. For what purpose? You don’t kill somebody to have them not talk about something that people have talked about for eight years.”

Spencer and Trevor Hannigan, the attorney for Mckenzie, questioned the credibility of expected prosecution witnesses, some of whom are incarcerated and have criminal records. Hannigan downplayed the text messages between the siblings and said jailhouse witnesses would offer contrived testimony.

Hannigan told the jury that Riggins knew Bryant and, as a result, did not need Mckenzie to identify him at the corner. Merely being in the area of the crime, he said, does not make his client guilty.

The trial continues on Thursday.