Brooklyn gang slayings, Kent Shand fatally shooting Keon Gravenhise
Arrest in a Brooklyn homicide provides consolation to a family ravaged by gang slayings.
A Brooklyn family that has seen three sons murdered and a fourth imprisoned received a glimmer of hope over the weekend with the arrest of a man suspected of murdering one of their relatives on his 24th birthday.
Kent Shand, 27, was apprehended in Pennsylvania after a weeks-long manhunt and was extradited to New York on Friday. He is charged with fatally shooting Keon Gravenhise in the chest on March 11 — the new chapter in the Gravenhise family's anguish and sorrow.
“What it did was help lift the family off the ground, since we never received justice for previous murders in my family,” Keon's great-uncle, Gary Gravenhise, said. “However, don't get me wrong; it does not erase what happened.”
Hakeem, Keon's nephew, was 16 years old when he was fatally shot outside his home in 2010 during a gang war. Nathaniel, 19, was killed in 2014 in what police identified as a gang-related slaying.
Clayton, Keon and Nathaniel's brother, is now 25 years old and serving a life sentence in state prison after confessing to two payback murders for Nathaniel's death.
Shand allegedly shot Keon Gravenhise in the chest on March 11 in front of The Jewish Escape Room on Ave. M near E. 19th St. in Midwood.
The Gravenhise family talked to the News last month about their tragic past, and relatives fought back against law enforcement's portrayal of the young men as gang members, referencing Hakeem, Clayton, and Keon's football exploits at Erasmus Hall and describing them as street victims and police targets.
“They portray these boys as gangbangers, which they were not,” their great-aunt, Louise Gravenhise, 55, said. “They were raised by their mother, grandma, aunts, and uncles... They deprived us of an entire generation.”
Shand, of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, was apprehended in York, Pennsylvania, by the United States Marshals Fugitive Task Force. He was extradited to New York on a murder warrant and is currently detained by the city's Correction Department pending his arraignment in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
“Right now, we're in deep mourning. Keon had much too much going on for anyone to take his life in such a senseless manner,” Gary Gravenhise said of Keon. “We're going to suffer for the remainder of our days.”
“We may breathe easier now that the perpetrator has been apprehended, but once the perpetrator is sentenced, we can feel differently,” he said. “Any related parties that played a role in Keon's death should face the full force of the law.”