The on-the-run Brooklyn man wanted for shooting two upstairs neighbors to death over noise complaints died after being shot by NYPD cops during a car stop early Wednesday, police sources said.
Jason Pass, 47, had been on the run since Sunday night after he was caught on video fatally shooting 47-year-old Bladimy Mathurin and Mathurin’s 27-year-old stepson Chin Wai Mode in the hallway of their Flatbush Gardens apartment building.
On Wednesday, he was shot multiple times after he charged cops with a knife, NYPD Chief of Department John Chell said.
“He didn’t give us a chance,” Chell said.
Cops on patrol in a police cruiser equipped with a license plate reader passed Pass’ car on Bay 44th St. in Bath Beach about 7:10 a.m., cops said.
“The officers rounded the block to verify the plate and came up on the car that was parked,” Chell said. “As they walked up to the car the male got out of the car with a knife in his hand and took off running.”
Cops cornered Pass in front of a home on Bay 44th St.
“For approximately 15 minutes they had a dialogue, doing everything they could to have the male drop the knife,” Chell said.
With a hostage negotiating team on the way, Pass told officers “what’s happening today is not going to end well,” Chell recounted.
“The male for some unknown reason in a full sprint charged the officer,” Chell added. “Our officers were forced to defend themselves, to stop the threat.”
Cops shot Pass three times in the chest and once in the left leg, police said. The former state corrections officer was taken to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn where he died a short time later.
His mother and sister were not aware the manhunt for Pass ended in bloodshed.
“Oh my God!” his older sister, who did not wish to be named, told the Daily News as she scrambled to call the hospital. “This is a lot.”
Cops are working on getting a search warrant for the car, suspecting that the illegal gun used to kill Mathurian and his son is stowed inside.
Bath Beach residents were stunned by the Wednesday morning bloodshed.
“This is shocking,” Jennifer British, 57, told the Daily News. “I’m shaken right now … I heard it was the man who killed the two people and I was like, ‘What? Are you freaking kidding me?’ That’s where I live!”
“It’s so quiet here,” she added. “You’d be surprised if anything happens here.”
Pass, who often stayed with his elderly mother in the apartment directly below Mathurin’s fourth-floor pad on Brooklyn Ave. in East Flatbush, had long complained about the noise the family upstairs was making, according to police.
Pass’ older sister on Tuesday confirmed the ongoing quarrel but claimed Mathurin and his family had threatened her mom and brother prior to that.
On the night of the killing, Pass went upstairs simply to talk to Mathurin “about the jumping and moving furniture and all these situations,” she claimed.
The shooting, she claimed, was “self defense.”
Mathurin brandished a pair of scissors as Sunday’s hallway argument escalated, video obtained by The Daily News shows.
Pass is seen pulling a pistol with a green laser scope and opening fire on Mathurin as the victim’s back was turned.
The Brooklyn bodybuilder was talking to his wife, who was begging him to go back inside when Pass started blasting away, the video shows.
Just moments earlier, the two men stood toe-to-toe as Mathurin held a pair of scissors to Pass’ chest, but the gunman appeared to be in no immediate danger when he pulled his gun and started firing.
Mathurin was repeatedly shot in the back and the head as he ran back to his apartment. Mode, Mathurin’s stepson, was fatally shot trying to run to the hallway staircase, the video shows.
After shooting both men, Pass didn’t make a quick escape. Instead, he called the elevator and waited about 20 seconds for it to arrive, the video shows.
Pass had a short-lived career as a corrections officer at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Westchester and was terminated in 2005, according to Department of Corrections and Community Supervision spokesperson Thomas Mailey.
The suspected gunman was fired from the department in June of that year, the same month The News reported he’d pulled a pistol on two plainclothes police officers in a road rage incident on Ralph Ave. in Flatlands, Brooklyn.