INSIDE THE DAY OF DEATH
9 people were gunned down and no one has been arrested
To the uninitiated, the staccato noise that shattered the day and night sounded like fireworks that echoed off buildings in the days surrounding the Fourth of July.
But to those in the know, whose lives have been touched by violence and grief, the sounds they heard in the hours after Independence Day weren’t bombs bursting in air.
People were being shot and killed. At a near-record clip. On the Sunday, July 5, that followed the holiday, nine lives were ended by gunfire, and it hit every borough except Queens.
Besides the senselessness and the outrage that followed, each horrific homicide had something else in common, from the caught-on-camera murder in Mount Eden to the onslaught in East Flatbush — no arrests have been made.
The new day had barely begun when the bullet barrage claimed its first victim, Jose Cepeda, who was shot to death on Atkins Ave. in East New York just before 12:45 a.m. Witnesses said Cepeda, 20, was defending his mother from someone who was giving her a hard time, someone who went away, came back with a gun and shot him in the chest.
Heartbroken friends and family shared their grief on social media, many adding comments about the gun culture that led to Cepeda’s death.
A relative, Jasmine Galarza, posted more than 40 photos of Cepeda, many of them from his childhood, showing off his beaming smile.
“This is us!!!,” Galarza wrote in the post. “Rest in peace son 2/28/00-7/5/20 until we meet again!!! Gun violence has to come to a stop!!!”
But it didn’t. Not that day. Nearly two hours later in Harlem, while the sky was still dark, Stephon Johnson, 23, was shot in the back inside a building along Amsterdam Ave. He died about 75 minutes later.
“Stephon made a lasting and beautiful impression on his elementary school alma mater,” Jeneca Parker, the principal of Public School 180 in Harlem, wrote on an online fund-raiser for the young man’s funeral. “The teachers and staff are thankful to have been a part of his life. He will be deeply missed.”
Two hours after that, at 4:22 a.m., when even the sun was still asleep, Nahjah Ellis, 19, was shot in the chest along E. 39th St. in Brooklyn’s East Flatbush. He died a short time later at Kings County Hospital.
Ellis’ brother, Jahnir, posted a touching Instagram tribute that recalled meaningless sibling fights.
“You will be missed big bro,” Jahnir wrote. “We’ve had countless arguments, but I always knew you had my back till the end of time. The last time we saw each other we didn’t feel the need to hug each other and say bye. All we did was nod our heads because we both knew we’d see each other
again. I wish we could’ve made a lifetime of memories but now I have memories that will last a lifetime. I love you bro. Keep watching over me.”
Prayers were being said, too, for Khalif Gethers, 40, who was shot and killed less than an hour later, at 5:09 a.m., and not too far away in Brownsville
“My heart is so so heavy right now,” Gether’s uncle Solomon Brown shared on Facebook. “My nephew lost his life to senseless gun violence. I always thought of him more as my baby brother. I never felt hurt like this before.”
Finally, the sun was alive and bathing the city in light.
But gunmen know no time. Over the next 12 hours, no one was shot and killed. But as afternoon turned to evening, the armed grim reaper was back on the prowl.
His next stop was Brooklyn, where at 5:47 p.m. Jahrell Gause, 21, was fatally shot along Christopher Ave.
Gause, the father of a 2-yearold girl named Harmony, was murdered three years after his best friend was killed. Gause made sure to keep Luiz Ortiz Jr.‘s memory alive, holding an annual remembrance of his friend, including an event last year to mark the dead man’s 21st birthday.
“He was a happy soul, one of a kind, the life of the party,” said Harmony’s mom Treisy Fuentes, 19. “Smiling and always ready to go to war for his own. He was always happy with Harmony, just a great father. She knows he is hers, and that he loves her.”
No gun death that day captured the ugliness of New York’s shooting spree more than the caught-on-camera murder of Anthony Robinson, 29, who was cut down in a drive-by attack while crossing a Bronx street hand in hand with his 7-year-old daughter just before 6 p.m.
Young Khloe, who is seen in surveillance video dashing to safety while her mortally wounded father lay writhing in the crosswalk, survived the attack, but her family said she is emotionally wounded forever.
“That little girl lives for her dad,” said Robinson’s girlfriend, Stephanie Quinonez. “She’s real crazy for him.”
Victims No. 7 and 8 were slain during the same incident when a pair of shooters opened fire in a Bronx apartment building, killing Joel Baba, 22, and Eghosa Imafidon, 27 at around 8 p.m.
“This is a lesson learned,” said a friend of one of the victims as he paid tribute at a memorial outside the apartment complex on E. 171 St. and College Ave. in Claremont. “You’re not safe on the block, you’re not safe in your own building.”
A Staten Island grandfather, Moleik Beverly, was the ninth and last person shot to death on July 5. Cops discovered Beverly just before 9 p.m. with a head wound in a building in the Stapleton Houses.
“He was always helping people in the community,” said neighbor Monique Small. “He was a good guy.”
Mercifully, the day ended just several hours later, but the damage had already been done.