Man, 34, shot to death in Bx. park
A baby reveal party turned bad when a 34-year-old man was fatally shot in a Bronx park Sunday morning.
Matthew Cruz was shot in the head and back on a paved path inside Rainey Park near Beck St. and Intervale Ave. around 7:35 a.m., police said. Medics rushed Cruz to Lincoln Hospital but he could not be saved.
Family members said Cruz was attending the party earlier in the night when he continued the celebration in the park.
Cruz’s wife wept at the gruesome scene hours later where her husband’s red St. Louis Cardinals hat and tshirt sat next to a pool of blood and evidence markers.
“Oh my god,” she screamed as she fell to her kneesscene. “Look what they did to my baby!”
Cruz leaves behind a young daughter.
“He was a good kid. He worked hard for his family,” said Cruz’s father-in-law Gimel Peterson.
“We were all supposed to go out today. It’s my wife’s birthday,” Peterson, 58, added. “Now that’s not a great birthday.”
Friends were shocked by the slaying.
“He was a good all-around guy. He worked for his family. He was always working,” one friend said.
There were no immediate arrests.