U. student wrestler in gun horror
Slain in shootout at B’klyn project
A college wrestler about to return to school was fatally shot in the head during a gunfight outside a Brooklyn housing project, police said Monday.
Deshawn Herbert, 21, got into a gunfight in front of NYCHA’s Unity Plaza on Georgia Ave. near Blake Ave. in East New York about 3:50 a.m. Saturday. Herbert’s killer has not been caught, but the gun battle was caught on video obtained by cops, police said.
“This is just destroying us,” said the victim’s father, Frederick, 58. “He wanted to do something better with his life other than just live in this neighborhood. This [gun violence] is why he left. This is why he went to college. This is why he was in wrestling.”
Herbert had recently returned to the city to mourn his grandmother but planned to soon return to North Idaho College.
Herbert and his killer traded shots that were picked up on ShotSpotter, the NYPD’s hightech gunshot sensor network, drawing cops to the scene.
Medics rushed Herbert to Brookdale University Hospital, where he died. He lived just a couple blocks from where he was shot and word quickly spread to his parents.
“[My wife] woke me up. She said you have to go to the hospital,” Frederick said. “I left so fast that I didn’t even have my ID.”
Herbert had a full wrestling scholarship to North Idaho College, a community college in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
On Monday, his mother and father were left to stand in the hallway of their East New York home and tearfully recall their son’s success as a wrestler.
As they spoke, their slain son’s recently acquired bully pitbull puppy, Roxy, scampered up and down the hall. “She’s been looking for him nonstop since he left,” the victim’s father said of the dog.
Herbert started wrestling at age 8 and by the end of high school was rated eighth best in the state and a two-time All-American, they said.
“He was a bright young man,” Frederick said. “He was very intelligent.”
Herbert hoped to become a chiropractor. “He became interested in it because of the exercises they teach you in wrestling,” his dad said.
Herbert’s mother, Rosetta, said her son had unlimited potential.
“He was well-known . . . . He had goals he wanted to reach. He was very ambitious,” she said. “He was just trying to make it.”
The grieving mother last saw her son Friday afternoon outside the family’s apartment building. He asked her if she had jumper cables for his car.
“He said, ‘Mom, do you have any cables?’ I said, ‘No, Deshawn, but I’ll see you later when I get off of work.’ He said, ‘OK, Mom. I love you.’ ”
Family friend Jennifer Bonjean, writing on Facebook, described Herbert as “funny, talented and sweet.”
“He came over yesterday evening long enough to make us all laugh — as he always did — and my parting words to him were, ‘Be careful,’ ” Bonjean wrote. “He died senselessly last night.”
Herbert had four prior arrests, two for robbery, one for criminal mischief and one for assault. He was wanted for a March 8 grand larceny in Bedford-Stuyvesant at the time of his death.
“No one is perfect,” his mother said of Herbert’s past brushes with the law. “He was on the straight and narrow.”
“Not everybody is doing bad stuff just because they got arrested,” added longtime family friend Ken Alpart, 55. “It’s also pretty easy to get arrested when you’re spending a lot of time in the streets.”
Alpart’s son wrestled alongside Herbert.
“He was a phenomenal wrestler,” Alpart said of Herbert. “A lot of these kids have tons of resources . . . . He had a [smaller] fraction of the mat time than a lot of other wrestlers, but he was really dominant.”
“He was hilarious,” Alpart added. “He had this incredible wit and sense of humor.”
“He was a talented and athletic wrestler,” Herbert’s former trainer Jamie Lupole wrote on Facebook. “What I remember best of him was his infectious smile and fabulous sense of humor.”