Neighbor wanted for hallway killings of NYC dad and stepson is fatally shot by police

The on-the-run suspect wanted in the execution-style killings of his two upstairs neighbors was shot dead by police early Wednesday when he charged at cops with a six-inch knife during a traffic stop in Brooklyn, NYPD officials said.

Jason Pass, 47, was in a car on Bay 44th Street in Bath Beach at around 7:10 a.m. when cops in a police cruiser equipped with a license plate reader got a hit on his vehicle and stopped him, authorities said.

Pass — who had been wanted since Sunday night after being caught on video fatally shooting 47-year-old school bus driver Bladimy Mathurin and his 27-year-old stepson, Chinwai Mode — “jumped out of the car with a knife in his hand and took off running,” NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell told reporters.

The officers were able to corner him and spoke with him for about 15 minutes — with Pass “basically saying what’s happening today is not going to end well,” Chell said.

Then, “for some unknown reason” Pass “did a full sprint [and] charged the officers,” Chell said.

“He didn’t give us a choice,” the chief added. “[Our officers] did everything he could to neutralize this person and get that knife out of his hand.”

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Pass was rushed to NYU Langone Hospital in critical condition and later succumbed to his injuries after being hit four times, including three shots to the chest, Chell said.

“He charged at them with a knife,” a police source told The Post, calling it attempted “suicide.”

Neighbors told The Post they saw Pass booking it out of his car, with the officers hot on his trail.

“They were talking to him for a long time, for like 15 minutes, they were just trying to reason with him,” said one woman, who asked her name be withheld. “It looked like he was crying. He put his hands on his forehead a few times. And then they started yelling.

“They kept yelling, ‘drop the knife! drop the knife! drop the knife!’ … And then they shot him,” she recalled.

Another witness, a 50-year-old registered nurse who only provided her first name, Terry, also said Pass seemed “either confused or scared” when the cops cornered him.

“He was standing like this with his hand on his forehead,” she recalled. “The cops were trying to talk him down. I heard them say ‘drop the knife!’ They said it a few times. Then the shots.”

The former correction officer was identified by law enforcement yesterday as the suspect in the cold-blooded killings of Mathurin and Mode.

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The ghastly double homicide occurred at Brooklyn’s Flatbush Gardens apartment complex Sunday night and was caught on surveillance video.

The shooting — in the hallway of a well-known housing complex where stars Barbra Streisand and Michael K. Williams grew up — was sparked by an argument over noise.

The distressing footage obtained by The Post showed the shooter, dressed in dark clothing, angrily confronting his upstairs neighbors over noise before 10:30 p.m. Sunday. The video has no audio, so it is unknown what exactly was said during the exchange.

The feud escalated when Mathurin charged out of his apartment brandishing a pair of scissors and faced off against his neighbor in the hallway.

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In the video, the suspect pulls out a handgun.

Mathurin spots the gun but waves it off.

He turns around and begins walking toward his fourth-floor apartment, at which point the neighbor takes aim, fires several shots and strikes Mathurin, who falls to the floor.

Mode, who was also in the hallway, tries to get away from the gunman, but the neighbor fires multiple shots at him, including at least twice after he has collapsed in a pool of his own blood.

The suspect then returns to the still-alive Mathurin and shoots him execution-style on his doorstep as the victim is struggling to rise, before calmly taking the elevator down to the lobby and fleeing.

Marie Delille, Mathurin’s grieving widow, said her neighbor fired nine shots at her husband and son in front of her 10-year-old daughter.

Nine .45-caliber shell casings and five bullet fragments were recovered from the hallway, sources told The Post.

Delille said Pass has been feuding with her family over noise for years — and NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny confirmed Tuesday that there were six previous 311 calls complaining of people walking upstairs placed from the suspect’s apartment.

“This man hates us with every bone in his body,” Delille told CBS New York of the neighbor.

The gun Pass had used in the double-slaying was unlicensed, according to NYPD Deputy Chief Jason Savino.

“Essentially that was not a licensed firearm,” he told reporters Wednesday morning. “We have a ton of investigative measures that are taking place right now, obviously [including] evidence collection comparisons and we had a pending search warrant for that vehicle. And obviously that’ll be released when the time is due.”

Pass had a prior criminal history that included a 1992 arrest for robbery.

He worked as a correction officer at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining from September 2004 to June 2005 when he was fired, a Department of Corrections and Community Supervision spokesperson said.

SOURCE: New York Post