Buggs was accompanied by another man who police also took into custody, Mohammed told the paper.
Buggs allegedly shot Brownlee, an ex-con who killed two men himself in the 1980s, three times after an argument in the 2018 incident.
The dying victim told responding officers he knew who shot him but refused to say who it was. Investigators closed in on Buggs, a suspected drug dealer, within days anyway.
More recently, he cursed out a Brooklyn judge who denied his bail application at a hearing in February, then received a contempt of court order. Suck my d -, you f f -, he told the judge during a virtual hearing, according to the Post report.
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New York City – A murder suspect who authorities mistakenly released from a New York City jail on March 10th has been rearrested, a police source confirmed to Fox News on Friday. Christopher Buggs, 26, was being held at Rikers Island jail as he awaited trial in connection with the slaying of 55-year-old Ernest Brownlee outside a bodega in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in 2018.
Police finally recaptured the 5-foot, 5-inch-tall, 160-pound suspect in a Bronx bodega more than a month after a clerical error resulted in his release.
The New York Post that 15 to 20 police officers rushed in to make the arrest, which he said went without further incident. Buggs was accompanied by another man who police also took into custody.
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Man charged with murder caught after mistaken release
April 16, 2021
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NEW YORK (AP) A man charged with murder who was mistakenly released from a New York City jail more than a month ago was taken back into custody Friday.
Christopher Buggs, 26, was arrested by members of a U.S. marshals fugitive task force and the New York City Department of Correction, said Peter Thorne, a spokesman for the city Correction Department.
Details of the arrest and how authorities found Buggs were not released. He was captured in the Bronx, according to media reports.
Buggs is awaiting trial for the 2018 fatal shooting of Ernest Brownlee, 55, at a Brooklyn bodega.
Buggs sat in custody for three years at Rikers following his February 2018 second-degree murder arrest in the death of Ernest Brownlee, 55, who was shot in front of a Throop Avenue deli in Bed-Stuy. Court records indicated he was next due for a hearing in June on the murder charges.
At the time of his accidentally release, Department of Correction online inmate records also showed Buggs status as Released. He had been held in the Otis Bantum facility.
It appeared Buggs was released on an unrelated contempt of court finding, with Rikers staff not realizing he should still be locked up for his alleged role in the murder case.