Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz today announced that a 31-year-old St. Albans man has been sentenced to prison for [23] years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the first degree for the September 2018 road rage shooting that killed a 27-year-old, off-duty corrections officer in South Richmond Hill, Queens.

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said, “[].”

The District Attorney identified the defendant as Gifford Hunter, 31, of Babylon Avenue in St. Albans, Queens. Hunter pleaded guilty on December 12, 2019 to first-degree manslaughter before Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael Aloise, who today imposed a sentence of [23] years in prison, to be followed by five years post-release supervision.

District Attorney Katz said that the defendant, who was driving a motorcycle, encountered the victim driving his car and fired into the vehicle, fatally striking and killing him. According to the charges, at approximately1:36 a.m. on September 14, 2018, Hunter pulled out a gun and shot one time into a red Honda Accord stopped near a red-light signal at the intersection of 103rd Avenue and 120th Street. Hunter admitted he shot 27-year-old, off-duty corrections officer Jonathan Narain after the two men had an earlier encounter near a local food store. Hunter was arrested two days later.

Jonathan Narain, 27, of Richmond Hill, was found slumped over the steering wheel of his vehicle and died from his injuries at Jamaica Hospital.

In December 2018, the New York City Council unanimously voted to co-name 111th Street and Liberty Avenue “Correction Officer Jonathan Narain Way.”

Senior Assistant District Attorney Rachel Buchter, Deputy Bureau Chief of the Kew Gardens III, prosecuted the case under the supervision of Brad Leventhal, Bureau Chief of Homicide Trials and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes, John W. Kosinski,Deputy Bureau Chief and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Daniel A. Saunders.