A dispute over a scratched motorcycle ended with 50-year-old Trojan Hart dead on Sagamore Street and 47-year-old Jose Kuilan facing murder charges, after Kuilan’s sister told reporters her brother fired only after Hart attacked him with a stick. Kuilan is now held without bail, charged with murder, manslaughter, gun possession and narcotics offenses in a case that has quickly become a test of New York’s strict self-defense laws.
According to Kuilan’s sister, her brother opened fire after Hart became enraged over a scratch on his motorcycle and struck Kuilan with a stick, a version of events reported by the New York Daily News. Police sources told the paper that Kuilan gave officers an account similar to his sister’s. She called the shooting self-defense, adding that what her brother did was wrong but was still self-defense, while Hart’s ex-wife, identified as Damaris, rejected the self-defense claim entirely.
Investigators, however, have not corroborated Kuilan’s version of events with any surveillance video or independent witnesses, per the same report. Hart was shot under the elevated Bronx Park East subway station on Sagamore Street near Birchall Avenue the morning of August 3, and responding officers recovered seven 9mm shell casings at the scene, according to the Daily News. He died there, the outlet reported, and officers later found him slumped over a moped, shielded from a severe thunderstorm by a purple tarp meant to protect crime scene evidence, according to Norwood News.
A Fast-Moving Arrest With a Drug Haul
Kuilan was arrested roughly five-and-a-half hours after the shooting, per the Daily News, though Norwood News reported the arrest came at 11:30 p.m. that night — about 17.5 hours after the morning shooting — within the NYPD’s 49th Precinct, which covers Allerton, Pelham Parkway, Morris Park and Van Nest/Bronxdale. The arrest followed a traffic stop on Hunt Avenue after police said Kuilan turned onto the street from Bronxdale Avenue without signaling, according to the Daily News. Officers allegedly found cocaine, heroin, drug paraphernalia and $2,700 in cash inside his blue Toyota Camry, the outlet reported, and Kuilan has eight prior arrests, according to police cited in the same report…