SURVIVED BEING SHOT BY COPS, HARLEM MAN KILLED BY NEW YORK STATE PRISON GUARDS
MESSIAH NANTWI WAS FACING TWO MURDER CHARGES WHEN HE WAS KILLED BY GUARDS AT THE MID-STATE CORRECTIONAL FACILITY.
EXCLUSIVE
Mar. 3, 2025
Messiah Nantwi was the New Yorker allegedly killed by Correction Officers at the Mid-State Correctional Facility on Saturday.
“Deeply troubling,” is what Gov. Kathy Hochul called his death at a news conference on Monday. “The actual cause of death is not known but it is my highest priority to get to the bottom of this.”
Nantwi, 22, was facing two murder charges and serving time for illegally possessing a hangun he allegedly used to shoot at three cops. He was pronounced dead at a Utica hospital, the state police confirmed.
“The Office of NY Attorney General and the New York State Police were notified” of Nantwi’s death, the state agency that manages New York’s prisons, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or DOCCS, said in a news release.
“The Commissioner placed 11 staff members involved in the incident on administrative leave pending the results of the investigations which are ongoing,” the news release added.
The official cause of Nantwi’s death will be determined by a county medical examiner.
Mid-State, the prison where Nantwi was killed, is a medium-security prison.
DOCCS’ Director of Public Information Thomas Mailey did not respond to a request to explain what a prisoner facing two open murder charges—that could lead to two consecutive life sentences—was doing in a medium-security facility when typically they would be kept in a maximum-security prison.
The killing comes on the 15th day of a wildcat strike by state prison guards that is continuing despite threats by Gov. Kathy Hochul to fire and arrest strikers. At least three other prisoners have died during the strike.
Nantwi was shot several times by police in the Bronx in 2021.
NYPD officers spotted Nantwi and a companion carrying spray paint cans and approached them. Then 18, Nantwi allegedly pulled a .22-calliber pistol and opened fire on Sgt. Darren Earl and officers Malik Underwood and Erick Reyes.
“The three Officers returned 31 shots, striking Nantwi multiple times,” police said. “The cops were not injured.”
Nantwi survived. He was charged with three counts of attempted murder, criminal use and possession of a firearm, three counts of menacing a police officer, resisting arrest and possession of graffiti instruments.
A judge set Nantwi’s bail at $300,000. He made it on Apr. 21, 2021 by posting 10%, or $30,000, as New York law allows.
Nanwi was still out on that bail when he allegedly murdered two people in 2023. The killings made national headlines, and put criminal justice reform in Conservatives’ crosshairs.
Then 21, Nantwi was charged with “shooting and killing two people in Harlem over a period of 27 hours, including on the street in broad daylight and inside a smoke shop on 304 Lenox Avenue the next evening,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a 2023 news release.
Video captured the murder in the smoke shop.
Prosecutors called Nantwi an “associate” of the One-Two-Nine crew and said his first killing, of 19-year-old Jaylen Duncan, triggered a retaliatory murder. Trevor Gibbs, 25, was convicted of murder for killing Hector Delgato, 26, an OTN member, prosecutors said.
Emily Tuttle, Deputy Director of Communications/Senior Advisor to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, said the twin murder charges remain pending against Nantwi.
Typically, when criminal defendants die pending trial, the charges against them are dismissed because they are, Tuttle explained, “considered abated by death.”
Prison records show Nantwi pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree in the Bronx and was serving a five year sentence.
A video posted to Facebook captures a teen-aged Nantwi standing on Houston Street in the Village talking about his dreams. He said he wanted to make “art, stuff like this. Making art, making music, making clothes. Traveling.”
“I want to get my passport soon,” he added. “Travel the world. See London, Paris. I haven’t been to Africa, so Africa.”
Messiah Ramkissoon, Associate Executive Director of the Youth Justice Network, said he met Nantwi when he was 16.
“Massiah was like a little brother to me,” he said.
Nantwi had “a brilliant young mind” but the police shooting changed him.
“His mental health became a thing,” Ramkissoon explained. “What the police officers did to that young brother, it deteriorated his mind.”
Five Mualimm-ak, a formerly incarcerated activist and architect of youth rehabilitation programs, told The Free Lance:
“This kid’s story is a real example of how the system fails our youth. They only have violence that they get from the violence inflicted on them, back to the world.”
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