Camera snapped pair at scene: cops

Police are hunting for two thugs who they believe cut down a beloved Harlem high-school hoops star.

Tyshawn Brockington and Robert Cartagena, both 21, are wanted on charges that they gunned down Tayshana “Chicken” Murphy early Sunday as she ran in fear for her life.

Surveillance video places both men at the scene, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday.

“They are seen in the video with guns in their waistbands,” Kelly said at a press conference.

A third suspect, Terique Collins, 24, was arrested Monday night at 1420 Amsterdam Ave., and ordered held last night on $250,000 bond, charged with criminal possession of a weapon.


ARRESTED: Terique Collins, 24, is arraigned on gun charges.
William Miller
ARRESTED: Terique Collins, 24, is arraigned on gun charges.

“She was shot with a gun provided by this man,” Assistant District Attorney Jefferey Levinson said.

Murphy, 18, who lived in the Grant Houses on West 125th Street, was killed because she got mixed up in a dispute involving violent thugs from the rival Manhattanville projects a few blocks north, cops say.

At about 4:15 a.m. Sunday, the killers spotted her, and pulled at least one handgun.

“I’m not with that!” Murphy screamed as she fled into the Grant Houses.

She ran up four flights of stairs. The hoods chased her and shot her in the chest, hip and hand. She was declared dead at the scene.

Beyond that, it’s not clear why she was killed, Kelly said.

“I think that it’s important to make these apprehensions, and we can find out more about the motive of the shooting,” he said.

Collins has 13 prior arrests on charges that include drug and weapon possession, police said. He was arrested in May on a charge of marijuana possession.

Court records show that Cartagena was arrested Aug. 31 on a minor criminal-trespass charge.

Records for Brockington were not available.