Slash Suspect Caught Fleeing On City Bus
By Charles Rogers

Detectives boarded a bus at the corner of East 80th Street and Flatlands Avenue to nab the slashing suspect.

As a result of good police work following the knife-slashing and robbery of an East 84th Street resident last week, police from the 69th Precinct were able to trace and arrest the alleged slasher trying to escape aboard a city bus within minutes after the crime.

Officials from the local detective squad said Kemiel Downer, 19, was nabbed a few blocks from the scene of the slashing as he was trying to escape from the area aboard the bus on Flatlands Avenue.

Police sources said the slashing and arrest took place shortly after 11 a.m. on Wednesday, November 7, when Downer, who had traveled here from Georgia and was staying at the home of a friend, got into an argument with the friend's 36-year-old mother. His friend was not home at the time. The argument escalated to the point where Downer allegedly picked up a knife and slashed the left side of the woman's face - leaving a gash that later required at least 20 stitches, according to Brookdale Hospital officials. Downer then took her wallet, containing credit cards and some cash and a laptop computer and fled on foot, police said.

The injured woman frantically called 911 and police and other emergency services arrived, with Emergency Medical Technicians tending to her.

Meanwhile, Detective Squad officers who had been in the area working on another case, heard the radio calls and went to the house to see if they could be of assistance in finding the slasher just as a female friend of the suspect came along. She was looking for Downer and was also holding a cell phone.

The detectives surmised that she might also have the number of the suspect's cell phone and, through a series of connections with a special NYPD task force, a call made to his phone determined he was near a phone booth at the corner of Flatlands Avenue and East 80th Street.

Detective Sergeant Juan Duque, Detective Nick Pilouras and Police Officer Michael Spera hopped in their unmarked car and, arriving at the East 80th Street intersection and not seeing the suspect, stopped a city bus that was just pulling away from the curbside bus stop. They boarded the bus and, thanks to a description that had been given to them by the victim, nabbed Downer cowering in a seat in the back of the bus. He was taken back to the scene of the slashing and positively identified. The knife he allegedly used was also recovered.

Detective Polouras arrested Downer and charged him with assault in the first degree, robbery and criminal possession of a weapon.