Charges have been dropped against a man who stabbed a teen stranger to death during a crazed clash sparked by a prank on a Brooklyn subway train — after a grand jury determined the killer acted in self-defense.
Mark Smith, 25, was charged with manslaughter after his April 11 surrender for the death of 18-year-old Isaiah Collazo in a lethal confrontation set in motion five days earlier when a friend of the victim yanked the emergency brake on a Manhattan-bound D train.
But a prosecutor said in court that the grand jury found Smith’s conduct was justified in the lethal conflict where Collazo’s pal pulled the cord, with the dispute escalating quickly.
“He’s getting away with murder,” the teen victim’s outraged mother Iveless Martinez, 40, told the Us.Mistertruth after learning of the dropped charges. “It’s just not fair. Not fair … The detectives didn’t do nothing for my son.”
But Smith, in an exclusive interview with The News last month, insisted he did in indeed act in self-defense and never intended to stab the teen.
“I was just headed to see a friend,” Smith recounted. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I should have just minded my business … None of this would have happened. I don’t want people to go around and think I’m a killer.”
“The facts of this case never inculpated Mr. Smith, and this outcome is consistent with his role in the incident and the law,” Martha Lineberger, a staff attorney at The Legal Aid Society, said in a statement.
“The Brooklyn DA’s office conducted a thorough investigation, with Mr. Smith testifying directly to the grand jury, resulting in this just dismissal.”
NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig, discussing the case last month, described the cord-pulling as a “stupid kid prank.”
Collazo was seen on security video boarding the train with friends around 11:15 p.m. May 6, with one of the victim’s pals pulling the cord as the train approached the Atlantic Ave.-Barclays Center station.
“What the hell did you do that for?” asked Smith, with Collazo stepping between the straphanger and one of his friends before the stabbing. The victim was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital but couldn’t be saved.
While the stabbing was not captured on video, a platform camera showed the dying teen’s friends carrying him off the train.
Smith was initially held on $60,000 bond. But a Brooklyn Criminal Court judge cut that down to $20,000 as more evidence in the case emerged, including that the victim’s friends texted each other about getting their stories straight before talking to the cops, sources close to the case said.
The accused killer made bail and was freed on April 15.
The victim’s father said the slain teen was a “good-hearted kid” who moved into the dad’s Staten Island home two years ago.
“He’s never been in any real trouble or anything like that,” said dad Carlos Collazo.