2 shot, 1 dies in Bronx
Gunfire in nabe comes hrs. after tot wounded by stray bullet
Two men were shot, one fatally, on a Bronx street four blocks from where a 2-year-old boy was wounded by a stray bullet just hours earlier, police said Sunday.
Shots rang out near E. 187th St. and Tiebout Ave. in Fordham at about 8:50 p.m. Saturday, when one neighbor said he heard as many as 14 shots in separate bouts of gunfire from his apartment.
“I was watching TV, and I heard the shots,” Joe, who did not want to give his last name, told the Daily News. “There was a whole crowd outside, there was a whole commotion.”
A 25-year-old man, identified as Frankelis Tavarez, was shot in the chest, and a 23-year-old man was blasted in the stomach and buttocks. Both were rushed to a local hospital, where the older man died.
Tavarez’s cousin was notified of his death, who called his brother.
“My cousin called me and told me to lower the volume so that my mom won’t hear the news yet,” said the slain man’s brother, Luis Brito Tavarez. “They told me what happened and they told me my brother is injured, but we didn’t [know] if he was in the hospital or what.
“We spent three hours, until 12 o’clock, until the detective came and tell us in person,” the devastated brother added.
The younger victim was in stable condition Sunday afternoon.
Tavarez was killed just blocks from his home, where his mother last saw him around 6 p.m. the night he was killed.
“That was the last time I seen him,” said the victim’s mom, Nancy Tavarez, 50. “He wouldn’t stay out too long. He must have been on his way back home when this happened.”
The woman began to sense something was wrong when she repeatedly called Tavarez but he didn’t pick up the phone.
“Saturdays is when he’s off from work, but 9 or 10 o’clock he would always be back home,” the grieving mother said.
Instead, the men were struck just steps from the Bronx Baptist Church.
“Not much goes on around here. You never want to hear about a shooting, and then you see that it was near a church, it’s ridiculous,” said a neighbor who did not want to give his name.
“They have to get these guns off the street.”
As detectives continued to investigate the case, police questioned Tavarez’s family and asked if the slain man was in a gang.
“I don’t know of him to be in any group or doing bad things,” said Nancy Tavarez. “He was really quiet. He likes to go outside with his friends.”
The family does not know the 23-year-old man who was shot alongside Tavarez, who for the last two years worked in food distribution for Baldor Specialty Foods.
“He was always working,” said Nancy Tavarez. “He would always be working and then on the weekends, he would hang out.”
Cops are looking for four men seen fleeing the scene.
Just seven hours earlier, a 2-year-old boy was shot in the hip walking with his mother near E. Fordham Road and Grand Concourse, less than half a mile away.
Medics rushed the boy to Jacobi Medical Center in stable condition after the 1:44 p.m. shooting.
The gunman, described as a man in his 30s wearing a green hooded sweatshirt, black jacket and light blue jeans, ran off heading north on Creston Ave. toward 190th St., they said.
No arrests have been made in either case.