Man, 27, shoots and kills his brother, 17, in Coram, police say

A man who had threatened his mother and relatives with a gun, shot and killed his 17-year-old brother in front of the family's Coram home late Tuesday afternoon, moments before responding officers wrestled him to the ground, Suffolk police said.

Dimitri Robert, 27, who has no known address, shot Devontay Robert at about 5:35 p.m. as the teenager sat in the front passenger seat of a car outside the home on Judith Drive, said Suffolk police Det. Lt. Kevin Beyrer, commanding officer of the homicide squad, at the scene late Tuesday night.

A physician assistant with the Suffolk medical examiner's office pronounced Devontay Robert dead at the scene, police said.

Officers from Suffolk's 6th Precinct responded "within minutes" to a call of a man threatening his mother and other family members, Beyrer said. Officers arrived on the scene just as the suspect opened the car door and shot his brother, he said.

"Two patrol officers responded, witnessed the shooting, tackled Dimitri on his front lawn and took him into custody without incident," Beyrer said.

The teenager was not part of the dispute between his brother and relatives, Beyrer said.

"Other family members were trying to calm Dimitri down," Beyrer said of the suspect, who had recently been staying at the Judith Drive home. "The 17-year-old was not involved in trying to calm him down. He was an innocent victim sitting in the car … just by himself."

Robert was charged with second-degree murder and held overnight at the 6th Precinct and will be arraigned Wednesday at First District Court in Central Islip, police said.

Onlookers stood behind yellow crime scene tape stretching about a half block to the home just before midnight Tuesday.In front of the residence, investigators trained their flashlights beneath a parked car. It was not known if that was the car where the shooting took place.

A man who lives in the neighborhood of single-family homes said three gunshots echoed up and down the block.

"I heard boom, boom, boom, and then I heard a guy yelling and a woman screaming at the top of her lungs,” said the man, who asked that his name be withheld because of recent violence in the neighborhood.

About 100 yards away from the scene of Tuesday's shooting, at the corner of Beach Lane and Judith Drive, 18-year-old Jaifield Gordon was shot to death inside his car following a dispute in the early morning hours of Sept. 1. Police had said they found Gordon shot inside a 2013 BMW. The vehicle had crashed into a parked car and a fence in front of a Beach Lane home, police said at the time. Police said they have made no arrests in Gordon's killing. 

Outside a home at the end of Judith Drive near Beach Lane early Wednesday, the flashing lights from a patrol vehicle parked down the block illuminated a makeshift memorial set up for Gordon that included dozens of candles, only one of them lit, and other mementos.