2 men slain near Bx. deli
Kin begged new Qns. dad to stay away from the streets
A new dad whose family pleaded with him to stay off the streets was one of two men fatally shot outside a Bronx deli early Sunday, police said.
The victims were killed near E. 168th St. and Morris Ave. about 4:05 a.m., cops said.
One of the victims, a 31-yearold man identified by relatives as Terench Santana, was shot in the head and died at the scene.
“I kept telling him the streets is not for you. You too nice to be in the street late at night,” Santana’s distraught uncle Douglas Gibbs, 55, told the Daily News. “He was always in the street. He would lie and say he’s in Queens, but he was right here.”
The other victim, believed to be in his 30s, was struck in the neck and back. First responders found a gun underneath him when they moved him, police sources said.
Medics took him to Lincoln Hospital, where he died. He wasn’t carrying identification, and cops were trying to figure out who he is.
No arrests have been made. Santana’s uncle puzzled over why Santana was out in the Bronx just hours after Christmas instead of home in Queens with his infant daughter, who turns 1 on New Year’s Day.
“I have no idea,” the uncle said. “I don’t know why who, why would they do this to him. He looked out for everybody. There’s no need for this to happen.”
Santana grew up in the Bronx, where his mother still lives, but was living in Astoria with his girlfriend and baby daughter.
He still hung out in the Bronx enough for his mom to worry he might get into trouble, Gibbs said. He was shot just around the corner from his mother’s apartment.
“The craziest thing about it is every time my sister hears shots she just [thought] it was him,” Gibbs said of the victim’s mom. “Every time she heard shots she would run to the window and now this time they knocked on the door and told her. … She’s still in shock.”
Gibbs said his nephew had a seasonal delivery job with UPS and was on the verge of getting a permanent gig with the shipping company. He also worked for DoorDash.
Santana’s sister’s fiancé, Raymond Ervin, said he missed about four calls from Santana around midnight Christmas night, just four hours before the shooting.
“I didn’t really know he was calling until I woke up at 4 and seen the messages,” he said. “I woke up to a phone call from my fiancée and she told me everything. And I was like, ‘Damn, I wonder if he was calling me to take him back to Queens.’ ”
Ervin visited the victim’s girlfriend hours after the shooting.
“She can’t even contain herself,” he said. “She was just hysterical. She couldn’t believe it.”
Born Terrence Smith, Santana legally changed his name because he wanted to use his father’s last name, relatives said. A spelling error by the courts changed his first name to Terench, his family said.
His father, who suffered a stroke five years ago, lives on Staten Island.
“He played basketball even though he wasn’t very good at it. He played video games. He loved football, watching it, playing it,” Ervin said. “He just loved sports, Lakers, Seahawks and Kobe [Bryant]. That was his guy.”
“Sports betting, that was our thing,” Ervin added. “He showed me everything about that. We won together twice on the same day. Almost $1,000. For only $20. That was a nice win.”
“He always looked out for people, man. He didn’t even have no enemies,” Ervin added. “Make you laugh, help financially, whatever. Didn’t matter who.”
Later on Sunday, one man was fatally shot and another wounded on a Queens street, cops said.
The victims were shot near 146th Terrace and Guy Brewer Blvd., about half a mile from Kennedy Airport, just before 12:30 p.m., , cops said.
Medics rushed both men to Jamaica Hospital, where 34-yearold Dashon Borden died. The other victim, a 28-year-old man, was in stable condition.
Borden was about half a mile from home when he was killed, according to cops. Police have not made any arrests.