The mother of a 19-year-old Burger King worker who was shot dead by a former employee during a late shift choked back tears as she demanded justice for her daughter and thanked those who gathered at a makeshift memorial on Saturday.
Kristie Nieves, 36, held a big teddy bear given to her by a supporter outside the shuttered Burger King at East 116th Street and Lexington Avenue in East Harlem, where her daughter Kristal Bayron-Nieves was shot dead on Sunday, January 9.
The grieving mother, who lives five blocks away, spoke just a few words before she broke down and had to be escorted back into a car by a relative.
‘Thank you everyone and everyone who supported me, including my family’ she said, according to the New York Post. ‘The only thing I want is justice for my daughter. And maybe she is not the first one but I do hope she is the last one.’
One relative told reporters the family is meeting with lawyers to discuss a possible lawsuit against Burger King. The Miami-based fast food chain, owned by Restaurant Brands International, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from DailyMail.com.
On Friday, Winston Glynn, a homeless Jamaican immigrant who previously worked at the same Burger King location, was booked on charges of first-degree murder, first-degree robbery, criminal use of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon in connection to Kristal’s murder.
Kristie Nieves, 36, spoke briefly at a makeshift memorial for her daughter Kristal Bayron-Nieves on Saturday outside the Burger King in East Harlem where she was shot last weekend
Kristie (left) thanked supporters and called for justice for her daughter, 19. She was soon led back into a car by relatives
An unidentified man (right) led a prayer for Kristie and her family. ‘In this moment, she needs more from you,’ the man said
Kristal Bayron-Nieves, 19, was shot dead as she worked the night shift on January 9. She was allegedly crouching down to try to get the gunman more money from a second register
Police arrested Winston Glynn, a 30-year-old homeless man, in connection with the murder
Police say Glynn had worked at the same Burger King as the victim between April 2020 and December 2020, more than a year before she was hired. Above, Glynn in his work uniform
Video obtained by the New York Post and WLNY shows an unidentified man leading a prayer in front of the closed-down Burger King on Saturday.
Balloons were taped to the metal sliding gate along with photos of 19-year-old Kristal. The man prayed for Kristal’s mother in Spanish.
‘In this moment, she needs more from you,’ he said. ‘Father, bless her and her nieces, nephew, aunts and uncles who are here this afternoon, and the press and the residents. We ask that you give them strength.
‘That every tear that comes out of her eye, you turn it into strength. Turn it into blessings. We know, Lord, that it’s not easy, but we ask that you help them every day, and that she understands she is not alone.’
On Friday, suspected gunman Winston Glynn yelled out incoherent statements as he was led out of the 25th Precinct.
‘Why am I guilty?’ Glynn shouted through the blue mask covering his face as officers walked him to a waiting police car.
‘You know they charge n*****s every day?
‘Where’s our reparations for four hundred years of f***ing slavery.’
Detectives attempted to load the handcuffed suspect into the back of the car when he screamed ‘f*** you all! and then bellowed, ‘America’s gonna BURN!’
The cops then grabbed him by the shoulders and the top of his head as they struggled to shove him in the vehicle.
But Glynn had one last parting shout for those calling him ‘garbage’ and much worse in Spanish.
‘Do you wanna start a war between Latinos and n*****s?! Do you wanna start a war?’ he hollered.
Nieves and her family moved to New York from Puerto Rico after 2017’s Hurricane Maria, according to the New York Post.
Pictured: Kristal Bayron-Nieves, 19, who was shot and killed while working at Burger King in Harlem early Sunday morning
Kristal Bayron-Nieves was working as a cashier on Sunday, January 9 when an armed robber entered the restaurant.
Police recounted how just before 2am on Sunday, Glynn allegedly walked into the fast-food restaurant, wearing a ski mask, an all-black outfit, and carrying a backpack.
He had white earbuds hanging out of his pants pocket.
Glynn allegedly pistol-whipped a customer and a manager, knocking out two of her teeth, and then aimed a gun at Bayron-Nieves, demanding cash.
The 19-year-old cashier handed the attacker $100, but he demanded more money. Police said Bayron-Nieves crouched down to try and open a second cash register drawer, but had no key.
That is when Glynn fired a single shot and fled, grabbing the injured Burger King manager’s phone on his way out.
Bayron-Nieves was pronounced dead at the scene.
Glynn’s criminal record includes at least four prior arrests, most recently in November 2021, when he was charged with menacing with a weapon.
A spokesperson for the Queens District Attorney told DailyMail.com on Friday that Glynn was released from jail on his own recognizance because the offense he was charged with is an A misdemeanor, which ‘is not bail eligible.’
Glynn faces charges of murder, robbery, criminal use of a firearm and criminal possession of a weapon. Above, Glynn is brought out of the 25th precinct on Friday
He has been arrested on four other cases, three of which led to charges of criminal possession of a weapon
According to court documents obtained by DailyMail.com, during the November 30 incident at a homeless shelter where Glynn was staying, he allegedly threatened another man with a screwdriver.
He was quoted as telling the alleged victim: ‘I will stab you.’
Glynn’s court date in the menacing case was scheduled for March 1.
Tyrique Brisco, 35, claims he was Glynn’s roommate at the shelter for several months and called him a ‘stand-up guy,’ according to the New York Post. He said he knew him as ‘Junior.’
‘He had a lot of issues with him with seeing demons and stuff like that,’ Brisco said. ‘He smoked crack and he used to see things. But he wasn’t a bad dude.’
‘I know he’s from Jamaica and he came here. He have no family really,’ Brisco told the Post.
‘He was just trying to get out of here with his voucher. If they helped him a little better or faster, he wouldn’t be in the situation now. You can blame the shelter system for that in a way because they are not giving us what we need.’
Brisco added that Glynn was on sleeping medication.
Glynn’s rap sheet begins in 2017, where he was charged with criminal mischief for breaking the screen of a slot machine at the Resort World Casino in Queens.
He was then arrested for threatening a 45-year-old woman with a knife in Brooklyn in 2018. He was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and menacing.
In 2020, Glynn was arrested after assaulting a man in Midtown Manhattan.
He allegedly knocked a man down and continued to beat on him, bruising the victim’s eye and knocking a tooth out. The victim was taken to the nearby Bellevue Hospital.
When police arrested Glynn, they found a knife on him and charged him with criminal possession of a weapon.
The 2020 charge was deemed a felony offense since it was the second time he was charged with criminal possession of a weapon.
The highly-publicized killing of an innocent teen working the late shift to save up for a car even brought Mayor Eric Adams to the media-packed station house, where he quickly convicted the suspect.
‘I don’t come to press conferences of arrests, but this one was so personal,’ said the new mayor, who has vowed to crack down on the lawlessness left behind by the Bill de Blasio administration.
‘He murdered that child. He had no regard for the people he assaulted with that gun inside the restaurant.’
Glynn lived at a homeless shelter until recently, where a man who claims to be his roommate says he smoked crack and ‘had a lot of issues with him with seeing demons and stuff like that’
During the press conference, police revealed that Glynn allegedly shot Bayron-Nieves as she was crouching by a cash register, which she tried to open in order to comply with his demands for more cash, but could not because she did not have a key.
Glynn was apprehended in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn on Thursday night, after police say they used surveillance video to track his movements from Harlem.
Cops revealed that a pair of white earbuds hanging from the murder suspect’s pants helped lead them to the Glynn.
Kristal Bayron-Nieves, 19, reportedly moved to New York from Puerto Rico with her family after 2017’s devastating Hurricane Maria
Overall crime incidents in New York are up 30.55 percent compared to this time last year
Clothing seen on the suspect at the time of the killing was said to have been spotted on Glynn’s social media pages, and witnesses helped confirm his identity, according to police sources.
Glynn’s address is listed as a Days Inn hotel in Queens, which has been used as a homeless shelter.
According to reporting by the New York Post, citing police sources, Glynn is a Jamaican national and is not a US citizen.
During Friday’s press conference, police officials said that Glynn had worked at the Burger King on East 116th Street between April 2020 and December 2020. There is nothing to suggest that he knew Bayron-Nieves, who was hired as a cashier at the eatery a year after Glynn quit.
‘There was no reason to shoot this young woman,’ said NYPD Chief of Department Kenneth Corey. ‘Money had been handed over. She was killed for no apparent reason.’
Crime in New York City continues to climb, with overall incidents up 30.55 percent compared to this time last year, according to the latest count from the New York Police Department.
There have been eight murders to date in 2022, compared to just six at this time last year. Felony assaults have gone up almost five percent, and robberies are up 25 percent.
