NEW YORK -- Three young men were convicted of murder Tuesday in the slaying of a beloved Brooklyn grammar school principal who was gunned down in a drug-related shootout while looking for a lost student last year.
The jury took less than a day to convict the three suspects -- Shamel Burrough, 17, Khary Bekka, 18, both of Brooklyn, and Jermaine Russell, 18, of Staten Island -- in the death of Patrick Daly, the 48-year-old longtime principal of P.S. 15.
Daly was shot Dec. 17, 1992, as he walked into the crossfire of a gun battle between rival drug gangs in the Red Hook housing projects, just blocks from his school on the tough Brooklyn waterfront.
Daly had been looking for a 9-year-old student who had fled school after a fight with another pupil.
The slaying attracted national attention to the dangers lurking in low-income neighborhoods that have become increasingly riddled with drugs and random gunfire.
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes said Daly's murder 'inflicted a terrible loss upon his family, his students and our community.'
'He was the best of us, because he cared and gave us hope, and we should honor his memory by resolving to treat one and all as Patrick Daly did -- with mutual respect and understanding,' Hynes said.
The three defendants now face a maximum punishment of 25 years to life in prison when they are scheduled to be sentenced July 6.
The jury also acquited Burrough of attempted murder in the Nov. 1, 1992, shooting of Derrick Hall, 18, in Red Hook.
Authorities have said they do not know who fired the fatal bullets, but prosecutors charge that all three defendants were responsible for Daly's death by engaging in a gun battle in broad daylight in the middle of a populated housing project.
Two juries -- one for Burrough and the other for Bekka and Russell -- heard evidence in the trial, which began June 1.
Dual-jury trials are used when some evidence is admissible against one defendant but inadmissible against another, or when defense attorneys employ competing strategies.
Both circumstances applied to the case against Burrough, since he reportedly made incriminating statements to detectives after he was arrested.
In dual-jury trials, some testimony is heard by both juries and some by only one panel but the juries deliberate separately.
