Katie Suarez, a 28-year-old Brooklyn resident, loved running along the Shore Parkway Greenway near the TD Bank branch where she worked. The area, with its waterfront path and striking views of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, attracts pedestrians and runners alike.
On Oct. 30, it became the site of her final run.
According to her Strava account, a fitness-tracking app that records running routes, pace and distance, Suarez ran at a pace of about 11:30 minutes per mile for just 1 minute and 7 seconds that evening.
She covered 0.09 miles before the app’s map showed her briefly turning back in the direction from which she had come. Her body was found farther along the path, beyond the portion of her run recorded by the app.
Suarez was stabbed to death before she could finish what she had logged as her “evening run,” tracked through her Apple Watch.
“Only one minute and 7 seconds,” one person posted on Suarez’s Strava account, which has since become a memorial where runners have gathered to mourn her death. “This is heartbreaking.”
Another runner echoed the sentiments of many who have paid tribute to Suarez, remembering a woman who should have been able to enjoy her run without fear: “Katie, you deserved to be able to run without any fear or danger.”
The killing has led to murder charges against Sayed Mohassib, 27, a public school paraprofessional, who also faces charges of tampering with evidence and criminal possession of a weapon.
Police said surveillance cameras in the surrounding area, though not along the path itself, captured Mohassib entering and leaving the area around the time of the killing. Investigators also said he later disposed of clothing at his home, where red stains found on a wall were subsequently determined to be blood.
The investigation has drawn attention across the city, with the mayor’s office vowing to hold those responsible accountable.
“Every New Yorker deserves to be safe in every corner of our city, at any hour of the day or night,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Deputy Press Secretary Jeremy Edwards said. “While we are still working to understand the motive behind this attack, there can be no ambiguity about our responsibility to pursue accountability in this terrible crime.”
Many are looking to take it a step further.
A safer shoreline
As runners mourn Suarez on her Strava account, her killing along the Shore Parkway Greenway has sparked renewed calls for better lighting and safety measures along the waterfront path.
State Sen. Andrew Gounardes and Council Member Kayla Santosuosso joined runners, community members and local advocates on Nov. 10 to demand improvements to the Shore Parkway Greenway and surrounding streets in southern Brooklyn.
“We believe something very simple, that lighting is safety. We’re here demanding more lighting and a safer promenade,” Santosuosso said. “Now it is time to make it happen in Katie’s name.”
Santosuosso described the greenway as a beloved “gem of southern Brooklyn,” but pointed to a stretch of more than one mile, including the area where Suarez was attacked, that remains “completely dark.”
“Our neighbors have been asking for better lighting on this promenade and across our streets and sidewalks since long before I took elected office,” she said. “We don’t know if better lighting would have prevented what happened to Katie Suarez, but the chance that it could have been is enough.”
Gounardes echoed the call, urging the city to illuminate the entire shoreline path to make it safer for pedestrians, runners, cyclists and people fishing.
“We’re here not only to mourn, but to call for action,” he said. “It’s past time to install lighting on the Greenway, and to ensure the streetlights throughout our community are working and well-maintained. It’s the least we can do to honor the light of Katie’s memory, and to prevent another tragedy like this in the future.”
Gounardes said the greenway includes a 1.3-mile stretch that is “completely dark.” He said the path “should be safe 24 hours a day,” particularly for runners who train before and after work.
“It feels unsafe and it shouldn’t be that way,” said Gounardes, who has run along the path at 4:30 a.m. and 10 p.m. “Lighting the promenade is not rocket science. It should not be this difficult.”
Community Board 11 District Manager Marnee Elias-Pavia said the board has received numerous requests for safety improvements along the promenade since Suarez’s “tragic death.”
On Nov. 10, the board’s Transportation Committee unanimously adopted a resolution to present to the full board, calling on the Department of Transportation (DOT) to immediately install additional lighting along the promenade from the ballfields to Bay 8th Street.
The committee also urged DOT to “remove overnight parking near the pull-off parking area on the Belt Parkway near the ballfields.”
Members recommended that the Police Department increase its visibility and patrols along the waterfront, survey the promenade and “make additional public safety recommendations.”
Gounardes, Santosuosso and Brooklyn Community Board 10 District Manager Josephine Beckmann have also called on the city to improve and expedite repairs to broken streetlights throughout southern Brooklyn.
In a recent letter to the DOT, they detailed a “backlog of streetlight repairs in the area.” Their survey found 137 streetlights out of service in Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights, some of which had been broken for nearly a year.
“We just want the lights fixed, because this is a top issue that we hear from our constituents,” Gounardes said.
“We’re the greatest city in the world. If we can’t fix broken street lights, something’s wrong,” Santosuosso added. “If we are serious about safety, we should be serious about lighting our streets. We want to see quick repairs on our streets and streets across the city. It’s pretty simple. It’s safer if you can see.”
Rebuild and repair
The Shore Parkway Greenway is a lengthy, popular running and biking trail along the southern edge of Brooklyn.
Suarez was jogging there, not far from the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. The path is part of a network of 15 greenways that includes more than 500 miles of trails along waterfronts, through parks and on city streets.
About 160 miles of the network run along streets, all of which have street lighting, according to Edwards. The remaining off-street sections include some illuminated stretches, and “the city has worked, and will continue to work, to improve lighting along that mileage,” he added.
There is no electric service along the section of the greenway where the crime occurred. However, Edwards said, “a capital project is underway to reconstruct the promenade, greenway and Fourth Avenue greenway entrance.”
Santosuosso said lighting and safety must be incorporated into the greenway renovation.
“This entire promenade is set to be redone in the coming years. Lighting should and must be a part of that plan. And in the meantime, we have other options,” Santosuosso said. “We can increase lighting on the Belt, which gives secondary illumination to the path. We can add lighting to the still-to-be-completed 17th Avenue Pedestrian Bridge, and we can also install solar-powered lights along the promenade.”
The project covering the northern half of the greenway, from the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge to the American Veterans Memorial Pier, is being designed to include a renovated promenade, improved greenway signage, new furniture and surfacing, dedicated pedestrian and bicycle lanes, a new drinking fountain, ADA-accessible access and new lighting.
“It also prevents injury and will encourage more usage of this beautiful promenade,” Santosuosso said.
Caught on camera
According to Strava, Suarez regularly ran along the Shore Parkway Greenway, including on Oct. 27, just three days before her final run. She also ran there on Oct. 19, Oct. 17 and Sept. 24.
Although she often ran alone, she joined nearly 40 other participants for a 5K with Diplo’s Run Club at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens on Oct. 24. The run included her fastest two miles, according to Strava.
According to The New York Times, Suarez left the TD Bank branch where she worked at Caesar’s Bay Shopping Center, a waterfront retail complex, before setting out on what would be her final run.
She spoke on the phone with her father, who planned to meet her after the run, a few minutes before 8 p.m. When Suarez didn’t appear, her father searched the path and found her bleeding from the neck. She was taken to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, where she died after being removed from life support on Nov. 2.
Although there are no surveillance cameras along the path, footage from cameras in the surrounding area helped police identify and arrest a suspect. That video showed Mohassib “walking to the area of the running path” before the attack and then “running away,” according to the criminal complaint.
Additional footage showed him “returning to his residence and emerging 15 minutes later wearing only underwear” and “throwing items into a garbage chute.”
Police said Mohassib told investigators he “came down to the bike path with a knife” because he believed “people were going to come and kill his family.”
He said he went to the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, returned, sat on a bench and became “covered in blood,” including on his jacket, pants and other clothing.
He said he “ran home, got rid of the bloody clothing and got rid of the knife.” Police said he had blood on his hands and “got blood in his apartment, which he attempted to clean.”
Although there are no cameras along the greenway itself, police used surveillance footage from the surrounding area to build their case. Edwards said $4.1 million in capital funding from the mayor, borough president and City Council has been allocated through fiscal year 2035 to support Argus cameras.
Growing greenways
The unlit stretch where the crime occurred is part of the city’s expanding greenway network. Suarez’s killing has renewed attention to the need for lighting and other safety improvements along these routes.
Edwards said the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation has capital projects underway “to improve the City’s greenway networks” and add lighting “if it does not already exist.”
The city has several greenway projects planned or underway across the five boroughs. In Brooklyn, that includes the Leif Ericson Park Greenway and Shore Park Parkway Promenade projects, which are both in design.
Other projects include the Kissena Park and Kissena Corridor Park greenways in Queens, the East River Esplanade reconstruction in Manhattan, and the Bridge Park Highbridge Greenway Promenade Construction in the Bronx.
A good daughter
A Gravesend resident who lived and worked near the Shore Parkway Greenway, Suarez was running close to home along a stretch of the path she knew well.
But instead of greeting her daughter after the run, her mother, Yasira Suarez, spoke to reporters on Nov. 10, recalling their final exchange.
“She was out for a run, training for a marathon, as she loved participating in them,” she said in Spanish. “I asked her, ‘Katie, are you on your way back?’ And she replied, ‘Yes, I’m half a mile away.’”
Yasira Suarez remembered her daughter as a hardworking woman who loved running in the morning and evening.
“She didn’t deserve this,” she continued in Spanish. “She was a good, home-oriented person who focused on her work.”
She also urged others to be cautious, hoping to spare another family the pain of a similar tragedy.
“Let this serve as a lesson. Please be very careful about where you go,” Yasira Suarez said. “And don’t go for runs so late at night. Just be extremely careful.”
