A murder suspect linked to the Lower East Side gang feud that sparked the brutal executions of a Chinatown nail salon owner and her innocent friend has been charged with setting a Rikers Island correction officer’s hair on fire, authorities said Tuesday.
The caught-on-camera incident happened Aug. 7, with a criminal complaint alleging Zymir Humphrey, 20, used lit tissue paper to set afire Officer Philippa Hazel’s head, with smoke “rising out of her hair.”
The flames were quickly put out by another correction officer. Hazel was treated at a Rikers clinic.
Humphrey is being held without bail for the May 15, 2022, shooting death of Brandon Atkinson, 20, at Avenue D and E. Third St. in the East Village — a slaying that ratcheted up tensions between rival gangs Up The Hill and Down The Hill.
The next day two bodies were found burned beyond recognition in a car near the Pelham Split Rock Golf Course in the Bronx.
Atkinson, a Down The Hill member, was killed to avenge Nikki Huang, 22, being pistol-whipped and robbed of her pricey Louis Vuitton purse, police sources said.
Huang reached out to friends in the Up The Hill gang after she was robbed.
An hour after Atkinson was shot to death, a gunman shot and wounded a 22-year-old man in the wrist and a 19-year-old bystander in the leg in a park behind the Rutgers Houses near Madison St.
At some point that night Huang and Jesse Parrilla were kidnapped by furious Down the Hill members and forced to lure a 27-year-old gang rival from his home in Ridgewood, Queens, at 2:20 a.m. the next day.
A waiting gunman shot that victim in the left side of his face and arm before fleeing.
The target escaped with his life. Roughly two hours later, Huang and Parrilla were found dead in the burned car.
On July 19, members of the U.S. Marshals Mountain State Fugitive Task Force learned Humphrey was lying low near Shasta Lane in Martinsburg, W.Va.
After canvassing the area, marshals spotted Humphrey leaving the location in a black Jeep. The Jeep was pulled over on Golf Course Road and Humphrey was arrested without incident.
He was later extradited to New York.
Humphrey was charged with felony assault and harassment for the correction officer attack. His lawyer had no comment.
Police are still looking for Steven Santiago, who if caught is expected to be charged with the Huang and Parilla murders.
The gangs take their name for a slight bump in the road on Grand St. near Madison St.
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