I don’t feel safe as long as he’s out there ... We live in fear.
THE KILLER of Rosanna Grullon’s 14-year-old son remains on the street, with the terrified Bronx mom left to wonder when the shooter will come gunning for her — or her two sons.
Baby-faced Christopher Duran was hit with 16 bullets outside the family’s Bronx apartment last month, dying in the arms of his older brother Christian in what cops believe was a gang-related shooting.
Grullon, 38, said there was a beef between her middle son and a boy she knew only as Jeremiah. The other youth had already threatened to kill the single mom and Christian.
“I don’t feel safe as long as he’s out there,” Grullon told the Daily News. “God knows what goes through his mind. I don’t leave the house. We live in fear. He kills without mercy.”
Though police have identified suspects Travis Bloch, 25, and Jeremiah (Jay) Thomas, 16, no arrests have been made in the cold-blooded May 22 killing.
Grullon said she’s now taken the protection of Christian, 17, and her 12-yearold son into her own hands.
She sent the older boy to the West Coast, and she’s keeping the youngster out of school — and harm’s way.
“I sent my oldest boy to California,” she said. “I knew he’d be killed if he stayed here. My 12-year-old . . . I don’t feel safe with him going to school.”
When not fretting over her surviving sons, Grullon ponders her own mortality: “The killer knows where I live. I feel afraid. He came to my house to kill (my son).”
The investigation into Christopher’s murder — he was killed on his morning walk to school — comes as city cops acknowledged a nearly 20% spike in homicides in the first five months of 2015.
Sources said the victim was an associate of the notorious 280 gang — a likely motive for his murder. Bloch, a career criminal with arrests dating back to age 10, wore a red bandana on the day of the slaying. Red is the color of the Bloods street gang.
Shooting incidents in the Bronx neighborhood are up from eight in the first five months of 2014 to 18 so far this year.
Critics of the de Blasio administration are already predicting crime numbers will increase along with the summer temperatures.
Grullon suggested the end of stop-and-frisk was to blame for her son’s murder, adding the controversial police tactic might have saved Christopher’s life.
“Just two days before my son was killed, there was a shooting a half a block from my house,” Grullon said of the area near 166th St. and Sheridan Ave.
“Usually after a shooting, the police would linger for days. Sometimes I think that if the police had been there, maybe they could had stopped the shooter.” She’s already living with the memory of her dying boy’s last words. Christopher, after his killer ran from the scene, called out, “Mommy, mommy!” The family’s grandfather in the Dominican Republic died of a heart attack after learning of the savage street slaying, according to a GoFundMe page set up on their behalf.
Family friend Rachael Tsirklin Freier said her initial plan with the fund-raising campaign was getting the surviving boys and their mom to a safe place.
“My true hope was to raise enough money for the family to afford to move out of the neighborhood,” said Freier, one of Christopher’s ex-teachers.
“To not have to walk out the door every day and have to remember he was shot and killed right in front of his home . . . When I saw his mother at the wake, and she said, ‘He’s never
coming back,’ I couldn’t bear it.”
The funeral for teenage Christopher was held Thursday. The family still needs money for services for their lost grandpa, said Freier.
According to Grullon, her son’s shooter delivered an April warning through an intermediary that he planned to kill her and the two older boys.
“My son told me not to worry,” she recalled. “He said (the other kid) was just trying to scare us. He told me not to worry, and said he hadn’t run into (the kid) in a while. I was hoping he’d be right.”
But the festering feud exploded on the sidewalk by a shooter who opened fire from point-blank range without speaking a word.
A video captured the gruesome shooting of Christopher, who had five previous arrests.
Grullon misses seeing the extra cops on the street in her neighborhood, where overall crime is about the same this year as last — down 1.3%.
“In some ways it’s too late, because my son was killed,” she said. “But I still have two sons. There are other kids here. Maybe the police presence will help stop people from shooting other kids.”