Thursday, October 1, 2026
A Baldwin man was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for firing into a crowd at a Hempstead house party last year, killing a 19-year-old college athlete with a stray bullet, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly announced.
Jacob McMillan, 19, was sentenced after pleading guilty June 4 to second-degree murder, second-degree attempted murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
According to prosecutors, McMillan tried to enter a house party on Willow Avenue in Hempstead at about 10:50 p.m. on Nov. 22, 2025. When someone hosting the party attempted to pat him down before allowing him inside, McMillan refused to be searched, pulled out a gun and fired twice.
One victim was struck in the arm while diving behind a car for cover, prosecutors said.
McMillan fled south on Kennedy Avenue before turning and firing another shot toward the party. The bullet passed through the shoulder of another person before striking 19-year-old Amira McCleod, of St. Albans, Queens, in the head.
McCleod, a student-athlete at Monroe University who was attending the party with friends, was pronounced dead at the scene. The two other shooting victims were taken to local hospitals and treated for their injuries.
“Amira McCleod was a gifted student athlete whose future was stolen in an instant by this defendant’s reckless disregard for human life,” Donnelly said in a statement. “Jacob McMillan chose to settle a petty dispute with violence and senselessly fired into a crowded party without a second thought, tragically killing Amira with a stray bullet.”
Prosecutors said McMillan hid in a backyard about a block from the party before being picked up by a ride-share vehicle around 11 p.m. The vehicle took him to Coolidge Avenue in Baldwin, near his home on Wales Avenue.
Investigators reviewed surveillance footage that tracked McMillan’s movements before and after the shooting, according to the district attorney’s office. Video showed him arriving at the Baldwin Long Island Rail Road station earlier that evening, taking a Nassau Inter-County Express bus and getting off near the Willow Avenue home shortly before the shooting. Doorbell camera footage from across the street also captured McMillan, prosecutors said.
McMillan was arrested in Baldwin on Dec. 2 by the Nassau County Police Department’s Bureau of Special Operations and Homicide Squad.
The case was prosecuted by Senior Litigation Counsel Brian Rodriguez of the district attorney’s Homicide Bureau and Deputy Bureau Chief Paula Cajdler of the Narcotics, Firearms and Gangs Bureau. McMillan was represented by Brian Carmody.
