BARBER’S SAD SLAY
Shot in car outside rob-plagued bar
A BELOVED BARBER was fatally shot in the head early Tuesday as he sat in his luxury SUV — just minutes after leaving a Queens bar repeatedly targeted by gun-toting perps, police sources said.
Zanu Simpson was found about 12:15 a.m. inside the $60,000 white BMW X5. It was parked outside the Breezes Island Grill on S. Conduit Ave. near Lansing Ave. in Rosedale, where the 32-year-old had been hanging out. He left the bar with no hint of trouble and then quickly became the victim of what sources described as a botched robbery.
A woman who drove by the crime scene told police a man in a charcoal gray hoodie leaned into the driver’s side window of Simpson’s vehicle and repeatedly punched him. Then the witness heard a gunshot as she zoomed by.
The woman doubled back and saw Simpson slumped over in his seat. Police said the victim was shot in the head three times.
Cops found Simpson’s belongings on the street near his SUV, including a gold ring, glasses and cash. Police also found a gun, believed to be the murder weapon, and a live round.
The gunman ran off and was still being sought late Tuesday.
Simpson’s death came about 12 hours after he fired off a social media post with lyrics from hiphop star Meek Flows.”
“N----- taking shots can’t stop me,” Simpson quoted the rapper in an Instagram caption containing emojis of a gun and two bombs. “They ain’t real enough.”
Paramedics rushed the mortally-wounded Simpson to Jamaica Hospital, but doctors couldn’t save him.
Simpson, who worked with his brother at the Strickly Skillz Barbershop in Hollis, died just before 1 a.m., sources said.
“That was like my other half,” said the victim’s brother Samuel Simpson (right), 35. “Everybody says we looked alike. They always called us twins.”
Over the last month, robbers have targeted Mill’s “1942 several people leaving the Breezes Island Grill, a police source said. “We’ve had three or four cases when the victim had flashed cash or jewelry at that bar and then, later in the night, someone had followed them outside and robbed them at gunpoint,” the source said. The muscular, Jamaicanborn Simpson, known to his friends as “Z,” was obsessed with sports as a child and graduated from Bayside High School, relatives and pals said. Cutting hair didn’t come easily to Simpson. But he eventually joined his brother at the popular barbershop frequented by NBA star Kevin Durant and other celebrities.
“I taught him how to cut hair and at first he didn’t take to it,” Samuel Simpson said. “But eventually he got in and came into the business with me.”
A handful of teary-eyed mourners carrying candles showed up at Strickly Skillz on Tuesday morning to console each other and pay tribute to Simpson. Several women were openly weeping, speaking through choked sobs.
Customer Emily Laguerre, 51, could only think of one description for the fallen barber.
“He’s wonderful,” she said. “It’s so sad to see life taken like this.”
“He’ll never say no, even if you don’t have the money,” she added. “He’ll say, ‘Pay me next week.’ ”