Troubled man busted in senseless slay of teen
A suspect has been arrested for the fatal stabbing of a teenage boy in upper Manhattan that left his brokenhearted family baffled, police said Sunday.
Mike Kushnir, 24, was nabbed Thursday for the senseless murder two weeks ago of 17-year-old Gerardo Rivas — a gruesome attack that took place in front of the victim’s family home, police said.
Gerardo’s last words to police were that he did not know the man who stabbed him.
“This won’t bring my son back but at least there will be justice,” the victim’s mother, Mirna Rivas, said Sunday. “It’s been really hard. We’re still destroyed. I don’t know how I’m going to live without my son. We did everything together. He was everything to me.”
Gerardo was stabbed in the chest outside his family’s Washington Heights apartment building following an argument on March 27. He was able to stagger a few blocks to W. 181st St. and St. Nicholas Ave., where he flagged
down a passing ambulance. He died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia.
Kushnir, who pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance in 2017, was ordered held without bail in Manhattan Criminal Court when he was arraigned on the murder charge Friday.
At his family’s luxury Hell’s Kitchen building, the doorman said Kushnir is on a no-entry list, with every doorman trained to stop him from entering after a nasty domestic incident with his mother got him kicked out.
“He’s one of the top people they don’t want in here,” the doorman said.
Kushnir’s mother declined to comment Sunday.
According to court documents, Kushnir was with a group of three other men when someone saw him make a thrusting motion toward Gerardo. Gerardo yelled, “He stabbed me,” before leaving the location on a bike.
“I never saw him have problems with anyone ever,” his mother told the Daily News after her son’s death. “Not even an argument, nothing. I don’t understand what could have happened.”
Cops do not know what led to the stabbing.
Gerardo loved to skate and ride his moped. He recently bought an old car, proudly telling his mom, “You don’t have to take public transportation anymore. I’ll be able to take you wherever you want.”
He attended George Washington High School in Washington Heights.
“All of the teachers have been calling me, shocked, because they all really liked him at school,” Rivas said. “We know he’s with God in heaven. He was a good kid.”