NEW YORK, NY – Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced today that Jamel Cooks, 40, has been sentenced to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter for a deadly summer shooting in Far Rockaway, Queens on July 14, 2017.
District Attorney Katz said, “This defendant shot and killed a 28-year-old man and injured the victim’s brother. Too many families are being devastated by these senseless acts of violence. The defendant has now been sentenced by the Court for his criminal actions.”
Cooks, of Redfern Avenue in the Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens, pleaded guilty on December 7, 2021, to manslaughter in the first degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael Aloise. Today, Justice Aloise sentenced Cooks to 19 years in prison, to be followed by five years’ post release supervision.
According to the charges, shortly after 1:00 in the morning July 14, 2017, the defendant approached two men on Beach Channel Drive near a housing development. Cooks fired several shots in the direction of Kamir Shine and his 25-year-old brother. Mr. Shine, who was 28 at the time, was hit twice by gunfire – once in the chest and a single shot to the hip. He died as a result of the injuries. His younger brother was struck once in the chest but survived.
Senor Assistant District Attorney Courtney Charles, of the DA’s Homicide Bureau, prosecuted the case under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Peter McCormack III and John Kosinski, Senior Deputy Bureau Chiefs, Karen Ross, Deputy Bureau Chiefs, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.