Police arrested a man on Tuesday on suspicion of killing an up-and-coming YouTube sports commentator who was hit by a bullet intended for someone else during a drive-by shooting in Harlem in July.
“I didn’t do anything!” the suspect, Mohammed Sawaneh, 21, shouted at reporters as police escorted him from the 28th Precinct to a police vehicle around 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
Sawaneh is charged with murder and unlawful possession of a firearm for allegedly shooting and killing Jeremy “Jeremiah” Cummings, 37, while he was talking with friends near West 118th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard at approximately 1:35 p.m. on July 2.
Surveillance camera footage obtained by the Daily News shows Cummings talking to at least three men in the street near the sidewalk as a white Honda sedan drives slowly by and someone inside the car fires a gun.
The men scattered, and Cummings fell to the ground with a gunshot wound to his back and began crawling around a car parked nearby. He was seen on the video standing on his feet for a moment, then staggering to the sidewalk, where he collapsed.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenney said at a press conference at the time that Cummings was “an unintended target.”
While the men were arguing, a white Honda sedan drove slowly by and fired shots, according to the video (Courtesy of Harlem Burger).
Police said Sawaneh shot and killed Cummings and then fled in a white Honda, which ran a red light and crashed into the back of a van.
“The van wouldn’t move so he reversed down the road and got pinned between the cars,” Mr Kenny said, describing the attacker’s daring getaway.
Jeremy Cummings died in a drive-by shooting in Harlem on Tuesday, July 2, 2024. (Photo by Carmen Chauvin)
“He abandoned his vehicle and fled on foot, travelling to Lenox Street where he took a Citi Bike from two young men at gunpoint and fled the scene.”
Sawaneh, a Bronx resident, was arrested after a month-long investigation.
“Someone was playing with him and he was hit by a stray bullet,” Cummings’ brother, Andre, told The News in July. “He should never have had to go through this.”
Cummings’ YouTube channel, JermSportsTV, which featured videos of professional sports and local street games that he filmed, edited and uploaded himself, was just starting to gain popularity before he was murdered.
Two weeks before her death, Cummings’ following grew to more than 33,000 after she posted a video about two WNBA players, one of whom was Angel Reese, who had just played in the league’s All-Star game.
“It just skyrocketed within a few weeks. Literally overnight. He posted a couple of WNBA players, girls, and that got him more views, and then his subscribers skyrocketed overnight,” his brother said. “It was crazy. It was crazy. I checked one day and, wow, out of nowhere, I went from like 300 subscribers to like 10,000 overnight.”
“I couldn’t believe it. That’s when he said, ‘I’ve got to take this seriously,'” he said.
His brother said he spoke with Cummings about two hours before the shooting and everything seemed fine, then he got a call from a friend saying Cummings had been shot.
“I was literally crying. It was hard,” he said.
