15-year-old girl charged with murder in stabbing of New York teen

A 15-year-old girl was arrested Thursday and charged with murder in the stabbing death of another teenager in the Bronx earlier that day, police said.

Officers responded to a call Thursday afternoon about a 17-year-old girl who had been stabbed at an apartment building in the Soundview neighborhood of the Bronx. The building, at 1105 Boynton Ave., was within walking distance of her home, according to police. The victim, later identified by police as Emery Mizell, was transported to Jacobi Medical Center in critical condition and later pronounced dead.

"I'm devastated; I'm numb; I'm in disbelief," Emery's father, Tony Mizell, 39, said in an interview Friday. He said his daughter was caring, talented and smart, and that she loved to rap and dance. "My daughter was a beautiful soul," he said.

The 15-year-old suspect, who has not been identified, has also been charged with manslaughter and unlawful possession of a weapon, police said. Officials described the weapon as an "unknown cutting instrument" and said they had not identified a motive.

Mizell called the attack "senseless" and "ignorant."

The murder suspect "took a life and messed up her life," he said.

Emery attended nearby Metropolitan Soundview High School and was set to graduate this year, her father said. She was stabbed shortly after leaving the school, according to David C. Banks, the New York City schools chancellor, who mentioned the attack during a town-hall meeting in Manhattan on Thursday night.

Kiki Mizell, a cousin of Emery's, said the 17-year-old was looking forward to graduation and prom, and that she would have turned 18 in October. "She was ready to start living her life," Kiki Mizell said.

Banks said the stabbing was part of an alarming trend. "We've got some difficulty in our schools," he said Thursday. "But we have seen a very significant uptick in violence right outside the school, around the corner and up the block."

Major felonies in schools remain under prepandemic levels, according to police data, but Banks said that too many students were being caught up in trouble nearby.

A spokesperson for the New York City Department of Education, David Clarke, said mental health support would be available to all students and staff at Metropolitan Soundview.

On Friday afternoon, there was a vigil outside Emery and her father's apartment building with candles, balloons, flowers and music.

A few blocks away, across the street from the building where Emery had been stabbed, stood Wilfredo Hierrezuelo, 38, who lived in the neighborhood. "She's a good kid," he said, adding that Emery "always had a smile on her face."

He said young people in Soundview did not have enough "programs to keep them off the street."

"I have a 17-year-old daughter and an 18-year-old son, so I could only imagine how it would feel to get that call," Hierrezuelo said.