Police fatally shoot suspect in Brooklyn double homicide that left stepfather, stepson dead: NYPD

Police fatally shot the Brooklyn man wanted for allegedly shooting and killing two of his neighbors late Sunday, after stopping him in his car in the borough Wednesday morning, according to the NYPD.

Police were on the lookout for Jason Pass — a 47-year-old former state correction officer and former MTA subway conductor — as the suspect in the murders of Bladimy Mathurin, 47, and his stepson Chin Wai Mode, 27, in their apartment building in East Flatbush.

Around 7:10 a.m. Wednesday, a police patrol car equipped with a license plate reader drove by Pass’ car around Bay 44th Street and Bath Avenue in Brooklyn, the NYPD said.

The reader notified officers that the driver of the car was “possibly wanted for murder,” NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said at a news conference Wednesday morning.

Maddrey said the officers called for backup and swung back around to stop Pass’ car.

Pass then got out of his car, “displayed a knife and fled on foot,” according to a statement from an NYPD spokesperson. The officers chased Pass to 187 Bay 44 St., where the spokesperson said they “were able to isolate and contain him.”

Police said the standoff lasted about 15 minutes, while officers urged Pass to drop his knife. They said he suddenly charged toward them with his knife, when cops fired multiple rounds, hitting Pass in his leg and chest.

Maddrey said “numerous” responding officers at the scene fired their guns out of concern “for their own safety.”

Pass was taken to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, where he was pronounced dead. The officers were transported to Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn for “ringing in the ear,” police said.

The NYPD’s Force Investigation Division is investigating the incident.

Pass allegedly shot and killed Mathurin and Mode in the hallway outside their apartment around 10:30 p.m. on Sunday, after a verbal argument among them, according to the NYPD.

Surveillance video later posted to social media shows Pass confronting the two men and Mathurin’s wife and Mode’s mother Marie Luc Delille in the hallway. Mathurin approaches Pass with a pair of scissors before Delille attempts to pull her husband back toward their apartment. Pass then shoots Mode, who collapses by the stairwell, before pivoting to shoot Mathurin, who falls near the family’s front door.

Delille told Gothamist on Monday that her husband was a school bus driver who also drove for Uber, enjoyed bodybuilding and wanted to teach his children the value of hard work.

“The guy killed my family, the only family I have,” she said. “The pain is so hard. I don't know if I can survive.”

Delille added that Pass had long antagonized her family and that he repeatedly complained about noise coming from their apartment after they moved there in 2018. Other residents said they were considering leaving the building and expressed shock and horror over the killings.

On Tuesday, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said an ongoing feud over noise among the neighbors fueled the double homicide, and that investigators had discovered six 311 noise complaints originating from Pass’ apartment.

From September 2004 to June 2005, Pass worked as a correction officer at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, where he was terminated, the New York state correction department said on Tuesday.

A department spokesperson said they could not confirm a reason for Pass’ firing because the relevant employee records had been destroyed after a required seven-year retention period. But a 2005 Daily News story reported Pass had been arrested that year for allegedly pointing a pistol and cursing at two plainclothes police officers in an apparent road rage incident while he was off duty. He was charged with menacing and reckless endangerment.

Pass later worked as an MTA subway conductor from 2012 to 2018, according to state payment records and an official with knowledge of his work history.

NYPD officers shot and killed 13 people last year, up from six in 2021 and the highest number since 2012, when they shot and killed 16, according to an annual use-of-force report the department released Friday. Police shot and injured another 15 people last year, and discharged nearly 500 rounds, an increase from 317 rounds in 2021 and 444 in 2012, the report found.

On Wednesday morning, after police confronted and fatally shot Pass, Gothamist reached his daughter Stephanie Pass by phone. She said Pass was a “decorated war hero” who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that she did not live at home and had not seen him recently. (Gothamist was not immediately able to verify Pass’ military service.)

“It’s just an unexplainable situation with a big question mark,” she said, calling it “extremely sad on both sides.” “This is the man that raised me, this is the man who put me through college, this is the man that raised me to make sure I became something.”

At the scene where officers shot and killed Pass, Mode's father Mike Felix said Delille was struggling to cope with the deaths of their son and Mathurin, her husband. “The way she’s talking it’s like she’s lost her mind,” Felix said.

But, he said of Pass, “killing him is not justice.”

This story has been updated with additional information.