Brooklyn Man Sentenced to Prison for Brownsville Shooting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Brooklyn Man Sentenced to Prison for Brownsville Shooting

Defendant Shot Man in Front of Bodega, Then Fled Scene

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that a Brooklyn man has been sentenced to 22 years in prison for firing a weapon at and killing a 33-year-old man outside a deli in Brownsville. The victim and defendant had been involved in a dispute prior to the shooting.

District Attorney Gonzalez said, "Daishawn Benjamin was shot and killed outside a neighborhood bodega in broad daylight, leaving his mother to grieve the loss of a second son to gun violence in just three weeks. No sentence can undo that unimaginable pain, but today's prison term holds this defendant accountable for so callously taking a life. My office will continue working with the NYPD and our communities to protect the hard-won progress that has driven gun violence in Brooklyn to record lows."

The District Attorney identified the defendant as Waajid Pierce, 48, of Brownsville, Brooklyn. He was sentenced today by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Phyllis Chu to 22 years in prison, followed by five years of post-release supervision. The defendant pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter on February 27, 2026.

The District Attorney said that, according to the investigation, on October 27, 2021, at approximately 8:30 a.m., the defendant walked toward a group of three men standing in front of a bodega at the corner of Belmont Avenue and Mother Gaston Boulevard in Brownsville, Brooklyn. He took out a handgun and shot at one of them, Daishawn Benjamin, 33, three times. The three shots struck the victim in the torso, the arm and the hand. The defendant then fled the scene in his Infinity G35 sedan.

The investigation determined, through video surveillance and other evidence, that the defendant was the person who fired the gun at the scene. The defendant was arrested on March 2, 2022, as he was disembarking from a flight returning from Tampa, Florida to MacArthur Airport on Long Island.

The victim's brother, Kizer Williams, was killed three weeks earlier, blocks from where Daishawn Benjamin was killed. That case remains unsolved.

The case was prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Joseph Mancino, of the District Attorney's Homicide Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Leila Rosini, Chief of the Homicide Bureau.

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