STABBED FOR NO REASON
Slain teen’s kin mourn, susp gives up
The suspected killer of a Brooklyn teen turned himself into police Tuesday afternoon as the victim’s grieving parents, though relieved at the news, said it won’t bring back their adored son, or heal their broken hearts.
David Lopez, 17, walked into the 70th Precinct stationhouse to surrender hours after the parents of stabbing victim Rohan Burke begged him to come forward, police sources confirmed.
“It’s good news, but it’s not going to bring my son back. I lost my son, my little 17-year-old son,” Burke’s dad, Kevin Burke, told the Daily News, his voice cracking with emotion. “It’s good news they caught him, but it’s not going to bring my son back.”
Lopez’s mother, Barbara Galloza, 38 — whom police believe was given the knife used in the attack by her son seconds after the stabbing — was charged with tampering with physical evidence and hindering prosecution, for disposing of the knife, sources said.
An accomplice in the deadly confrontation is still being sought.
Lopez’s lawyer, Stuart Rubin, declined to comment.
Rohan was knifed during a confrontation outside a 7-Eleven on Avenue M near E. 17th St. in Midwood about 4 p.m. on Monday, cops said.
“He was a good boy. He didn’t deserve to die the way he died,” sobbed Tracey Beckels, Burke’s mom said. “He was stabbed for no reason. He was only 17. The best part of his life hasn’t even come yet.”
When he was stabbed in the arm it severed an artery, according to his shell-shocked parents. “There’s a video that shows it,” his 48-year-old mother said. “It’s two guys that attacked him and they passed the knife to a female.”
The teen staggered into the traffic and across the street into the Pizza Gyro Grill.
“He was screaming, ‘Please call 911! Please call 911!’ He collapsed in a chair,” recounted Jamil Shirinov, 18, a cashier at the restaurant. “He took his shirt off and the blood sprayed all over the restaurant. It was too much blood.”
Medics took Rohan to Maimonides Medical Center.
An hour before the violence broke out, the teen had called his mom to say he was on the way home from school and called his dad to ask him to pick up some salmon for dinner. “He loves salmon,” the grieving father, 54, said through tears Tuesday.
Shortly after the calls from their son, they got a call from cops and rushed to the hospital, where they spent the evening at their dying son’s side.
“They said he was in critical condition and his heart stopped,” the devastated dad said. “They did the best they could. He was fighting, but he never came back.”
Rohan died at the hospital about 1 a.m. on Tuesday.
Rohan, nicknamed “Rohi,” loved basketball and video games and dreamed of becoming a lawyer, his family said. He was a junior at the High School of Sports Management, but police sources said he had not been attending classes recently. He had no arrest record, sources said.
“I would meet parents who knew him but didn’t know me and I would tell them my son is Rohan and they would say, ‘Oh, he such a good, sweet boy,’ ” his mom said.
“Everybody is in tears. All of his friends are devastated. They said they don’t know anything, they don’t know who these people are.”
“I feel like I can’t breathe,” his mother gasped, hunched over the ground between wails of grief. “This is so hard.”
Rohan had two adult brothers who no longer live in the family’s home in Flatlands.
“He never had a problem with anybody,” Rohan’s dad said. “What are we going to do now? It’s an empty house.”