Tearful teen suspect charged with murder as cops recover knife, sweatshirt after random fatal stabbing of beloved NYC activist
The 18-year-old man suspected in the random stabbing death of a beloved Brooklyn social-justice activist was arrested on Thursday – as cops raiding his apartment found a knife and a sweatshirt matching the one the attacker wore, police and sources said.
Brian Dowling was pictured with tears running down his face – and cuffs around his wrists and ankles – as officers escorted him from the NYPD’s 81st Precinct in Bedford–Stuyvesant after charging him with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
The accused killer was wearing the same white T-shirt and striped shorts as when cops busted him at his home on Lafayette Avenue near Malcolm X Boulevard — just down the block from where Ryan Carson, 32, was knifed to death early Monday as his girlfriend watched.
More than a dozen officers descended on the property, searching for clothing allegedly worn by the suspect during the caught-on-camera attack.
Cops found both Dowling and the dark “Champion” sweatshirt believed to have been worn by the killer in the video of the attack, the sources said.
Officers also found a knife in the home, and will be working to determine if it was the murder weapon, sources said.
Dowling was escorted from the apartment into a squad car by a huddle of officers, a video from CBS News showed.
“Assailant has been caught,” Carson’s father, Ken Carson, wrote on Facebook at 11:30 Thursday morning.
“More details will follow,” he added in a follow-up comment.
“I’m on the road… escorting Ryan Home to Massachusetts right now. I wasn’t leaving NYC without him.”
Dowling lawyered up and did not make any statements to cops after his arrest, law-enforcement sources said.
Sources previously identified a “mentally disturbed” teen as the main person of interest in the murder of Carson, who was attacked near at a B38 bus stop in Bedford-Stuyvesant just before 4 a.m. Monday.
Carson – a longtime campaign organizer for the New York Public Interest Research Group – and his girlfriend were heading home from a wedding on Long Island when the senseless attack occurred, police said.
The assailant seemed to target Carson at random, forcing the community advocate to stand between the stranger and his girlfriend, the troubling surveillance footage obtained by The Post showed.
The unhinged man can be heard yelling “I’ll kill you!” before the two scuffle, with Carson eventually tumbling over the bus stop bench while the attacker pulls out a knife and stabs him three times, according to cops and the video.
Carson lay crumpled on the ground when the assailant turned on his girlfriend and spat on her.
An unknown woman — who police said knows the suspect — then appears in the corner of the frame and seems to beg the knife-wielding man to not “hurt him” and repeats what sounds like “Brian.”
Carson died from a stab wound that pierced his heart, officials said. His 32nd birthday would have been on Friday, records show.
By Wednesday, police said they had identified the suspect but were waiting for “probable cause to make this arrest,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.
Police said the alleged attacker may have been fighting with a woman – identified by friends as his twin sister, Brianna – shortly before he began kicking over and damaging mopeds and scooters that were parked on the sidewalk.
He then turned on Carson, seething, “What the f–k are you looking at?”
Source said the teen works at a high school in Clinton Hill and is known to frequent the area of Commodore Barry Park in Fort Greene.
It is unclear if he had a juvenile record, which would be sealed.
But Dowling was issued three summonses in 2022 — including two for disorderly conduct — and was a robbery victim in 2021, sources said.
He was also cited in an incident report related to a July incident in which his aunt claimed he smashed objects in his girlfriend’s apartment following a fight, and described him in a 911 call as mentally disturbed, sources said.
Eric Riddick, 58 – who described himself as the best friend of the suspect’s dad, Brian Dowling, Sr., and considered the Dowlings his “second family” – said the teen was always a good kid, with no previous red flags that would’ve explained the murderous actions he is accused of.
“I mean there were really no issues — where you can go back and check if there were any kind of problems with him in the past,” Riddick said.
Still, Riddick said that Dowling’s “mental state” should be looked at by authorities.
Riddick said he’d spoken with the teen just “a couple of weeks ago on this block and everything looked fine,” adding that Dowling, who was “heavy into sports” had just graduated from high school this past spring and most recently worked in construction, with a previous job at a restaurant, he said.
He said he was on the phone with Dowling’s dad earlier Thursday and showed up at the home in the late afternoon because “he was so distraught, he couldn’t speak to me.”
Two young women, who described themselves as best friends Brian’s twin sister Brianna – but also friendly with Brian – also showed up at the Dowling house, and, when asked about the suspect’s mental health, one of them replied: “I do know there have been issues.”
She refused to give further details before receiving consent from the family.
A few hours after Dowling’s dramatic arrest, one neighbor, who requested to remain anonymous, told The Post “it was complete shock to hear about what [Dowling] did.”
“I mean what was he even doing roaming the street at that time of day, with a knife?”
The individual said he lived in the neighborhood all his life, and used to know Dowling’s family “better.”He remembered the accused murderer as “a good kid.”
“Today with the young kids you know, they get all their stuff from the internet, all these bad influences and they don’t wanna hear what we got to say,” they lamented.
“I mean…one day you could be dead close to the person and they’re thinking murderous things or got a murderous mind. I mean that’s major.”
Other neighbors said Thursday that “of course” the arrest of Dowling in the heinous crime is “shocking.”
“Imagine if it was someone from your block,” said Riccardo Sanchez, 51.
Alyssa Vladimir, 39, added that after reading about Carson’s activism work, “it seemed like if he would’ve lived, he would’ve advocated for [Dowling] not to be incarcerated like that…so that I think is the most tragic part about the whole thing.”
“We don’t hang out outside at 4 a.m. … but we heard about it through the news and there was all this commotion outside,” she said. “I feel really bad. He made one really bad decision and that’s going to affect him for the rest of his life.”
