A senseless argument over barbecuing led to the fatal shooting of a 21-year-old man at a Brooklyn NYCHA complex, police said Wednesday.
Dyseem Jackson was defending the honor of a young woman caught up in the clash outside the Albany Houses in Crown Heights on Friday when the gunman shot him repeatedly in the head, neck, and chest, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.
The victim was hanging around outside when accused gunman Usamah Sidberry began barbecuing after midnight, Kenny said.
As Sidberry, 37, worked the grill, “a female comes up and says she wants to barbecue too — so she goes home and gets some chicken,” Kenny said. “While they are barbecuing they start arguing about barbecuing and at some point (Sidberry) touches the woman inappropriately.”
The woman slapped Sidberry in the face, sparking a tense standoff. That’s when Jackson stepped in to defend the woman, Kenny said.
“Chivalry is not dead,” Kenny said. “(Jackson) says ‘Why don’t you leave her alone?’”
Jackson’s intervention enraged Sidberry, who asked the victim “why he was concerned” before running to his apartment in the Albany Houses to snatch a gray Smith & Wesson 9-mm. pistol, prosecutors said.
Jackson asked his killer to go into the lobby of an Albany Houses building on Bergen St. with him but was shot about 12:15 a.m. before making it there.
“There are about 20 to 25 people watching this take place,” said Kenny, who reviewed surveillance video that depicts the exchange after Sidberry returned with his pistol. “(Jackson) tries to walk away from the perp. As he does so, the perp walks behind him and shoots him.”
Jackson stumbled into the building lobby where the shooting continued.
“(Sidberry) walks up and gives him five more (shots) for good measure,” Kenny said. “The kill shot is going to be the one to the head.”
Everyone involved in the fight was drunk, Kenny said. At one point before snatching his gun, Sidberry called his girlfriend, who was about four hours away. The girlfriend agreed to come and fight the woman Sidberry was tiffing with over the grills, Kenny said. “She never made it to the scene,” Kenny added.
Sidberry fled the scene but was nabbed by cops within an hour. He was charged with murder and is being held without bail.
After being shown surveillance video of Jackson being shot, Sidberry admitted to cops he was responsible, prosecutors said in Brooklyn Criminal Court Saturday.
He has two prior felony convictions and three more for misdemeanors, prosecutors said. Sidberry was busted in 2008 for manslaughter after he and another suspect beat a man to death at the Albany Houses the year before, according to police. He ultimately served about three years in prison after being convicted of assault.
Previously, in 2004, when he was just 17, he began serving another prison stint of about three years, also for a Brooklyn assault conviction.
His attorney Jana McNulty said in court Saturday Sidberry lives with his mother and his three children, 8-year-olds twins and a 9-year-old. He has worked full time for the past five years doing electrical work for the MTA, according to the lawyer.
Jackson, the father of a 3-year-old girl, was a member of a gang centered in the Albany Houses, where Jackson lived, according to cops. He had been arrested five times, most recently for robbery in 2022, cops said.
His mother said Jackson was always eager to help people being bullied.
“That’s my son, when he sees someone in trouble he’s right there,” Mia Jackson told the Daily News Monday. “I don’t know what the altercation was about. All I know, they say he was helping out a woman.”
