Follows dad to sad end
Son slain 8 yrs. later
A Bronx man who lost his father to gun violence was shot to death in Harlem early Sunday.
Rashaun Pope, 21, came to St. Luke's at about 1:25 a.m. with a gunshot wound in his chest. Doctors could not save him.
“Somebody hurt my son,” Pope's mother, Key Odetta, 39, sobbed. “They took his life, and with that they took mine.”
Cops said Pope was blasted at W. 125th St. and 12th Ave. There were no immediate arrests.
Pope lost his father, Raymond McNeil, in May 2010. McNeil, 36, was shot to death during an early morning car chase in the Bronx, according to a News 12 report.
Odetta said her sons never got over their father's death. “They've still been dealing with that,” she said. “It's been eight years and the grieving is still fresh. And now this?”
Pope was an aspiring rapper and producer who graduated last month from Providing Urban Learners Success In Education (PULSE) High School in the Bronx, his mother said.
He was a top-performing student, she said.
“I ask (my sons) to bring me home good grades, they did and they do. I ask them to clean the house, they did and they do. I ask them to be humble in life, and they did and they do,” Odetta said.
But family always came first for Pope.
“My son loved people,” his mother said. “He loved his mother, his brothers, his family very much.”
“His brothers are distraught. His family is distraught. His grandmother is already a sickly woman. I'm his mother, I have lupus. I work and I love my boys. And now I only have two.” she said.
Before he died, Pope had been assaulted numerous times, most recently in February, Odetta added.
“He's not a street kid. He's not a bad kid. We live in a bad neighborhood,” she said.
Neighbors recalled seeing the man hours before he was gunned down.
“I just saw him last night,” said Gracie Ramirez, 43, a taxi driver. “I was outside and (his mother) said, ‘My son, he's at the store and he's getting a pack of cigarettes.' ”
Ramirez said while working she ran into Pope later in the night a block from his home. “I see him and say hello,” Ramirez said. “He's a good guy. He sits outside and says hi.”
A short while later, Ramirez learned from Pope's mother that her son was dead.
Upon hearing about his older sibling's death, Pope's brother was taken into custody when he refused to allow police to touch him, Odetta claimed.
“They put their hands on him and put a Taser on him and have him arrested because they say disorderly conduct,” his mother fumed. “He just lost his brother. Not only were we already victimized, they tried to victimize my family all over again.”
Police said no one was arrested.
At the hospital, Odetta could barely muster up the courage to identify her son.
“I had to go look at my son, my son, mine, my baby, cold and laying there not breathing. And I scream that's not him,” she sobbed. “I looked at my son today and there was no sparkle.”