A dispute on social media spilled onto the street and, on Friday, a TikTok antagonist was charged in the fatal stabbing of a 17-year-old this week outside a Bronx apartment building.
Aaron Katersky and Mark CrudeleAndrew Tollinche, a 22-year-old TikTok personality known online as DGB, was arraigned Friday on murder charges in the fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Jonathan Melo.
Tollinche is accused of stabbing Melo on Wednesday afternoon on Beach Avenue, the street where the suspect lives. Surveillance video shows the teenager sitting on the ground awaiting help shortly after the attack.
"I want justice for my son and I am giving full space for the law," said the victim's mother, Raquel Melo. Melo says her son had been riding scooters with friends when they encountered Tollinche, who was arguing with someone in a car. According to the victim's mother, Tollinche allegedly went inside his building, returned with a knife and stabbed her son in the back.
In recent months, a TikTok trend has drawn people to Tollinche's building to taunt or troll him. He has a previous arrest for raping a minor. Online speculation has suggested the stabbing may have been connected to social media disputes, but the victim's mother rejected those claims.
"I don't know what false narratives are out there about my son being involved in a social media dispute with this guy. There is absolutely no evidence of that. This is people running with information that they're grabbing from different videos," she said. Melo, who had no criminal record, was preparing to graduate from AECI 1, a charter school focused on engineering and architecture.
His mother said he was interested in real estate and was known to family as JJ.
"I had a wonderful son. I just want him to be remembered for who he was. And it was a goofy self. He was the clown of the house," she said.
"He instigated all the fun stuff. " Tollinche was charged with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon in connection with the killing outside his Beach Avenue home Wednesday.for Melo, who was known as "JJ," has raised more than $7,000 so far.
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