Harlem mom doesn’t know who killed son month after his death
The mother of a man who died last month after he was shot at their East Harlem home still doesn’t know who fired the bullet that took her son’s life.
Ruth Parks remembers hearing her son, 29-year-old Jerell Parks, talking loudly late Sept. 19 to four people in the hallway outside of their apartment at NYCHA’s Wilson Houses.
Then she remembers the gunshot. “I open the bedroom door, I could smell the gunpowder,” Parks, 57, told the Daily News on Thursday.
“Who’s that?” she asked. Her son answered: “Mom, it’s me.”
“Mommy, just reach down,” Jerell Parks said.
“I reached my hand down and he grabbed it tight,” Parks recalled.
“Momma I got hurt. Mommy, I’ve been shot,” said her son.
Jerell was struck once in the upper body, police said. Medics rushed him to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center where he clung to life for a month before dying Oct. 24.
Cops are still searching for gunman.
“I cry every day for my baby,” the grieving mother said. “All I have is his pictures.”
September saw a large spike in murders, with 51 killed compared to 29 killed during the same month in 2019, city data shows. Jerell’s death was ruled a homicide after he died Oct. 24.
Parks knew something wasn’t quite right Sept. 19 when she saw Jerell open your hand the the door talk to two men and two women in the hall outside their apartment.
“[A man] just happened to open the staircase door and I notice [Jerell] leaning his body in that direction,” Parks told The News.
Jerell was speaking loudly. “So I got up and I came to see who he was talking to,” she recounted.
“I told him if you do decide to go out to let me know — he usually does. He said, ‘Mom, I’ll be back.’ ”
Parks went to a bedroom in the apartment.
Moments later, at around 11 p.m., her son was shot. “I can’t breathe. My son got shot,” Parks recalled telling the 911 operator.
Jerell recounted to his mother what the shooters took from him. “They took everything, my money for my trip,’” she said. Jerell was planning a birthday trip to Los Angeles.
While her son was in the hospital, Parks asked doctors how likely was it that her son would live. “Can you please give me a percentage of survival?” she recalled asking.
Parks said she never got an answer. Jerell had three siblings and two daughters, 3 and 12. He liked basketball, football and wrestling, and was hoping to work in maintenance.
In his final weeks, Jerell was intubated and couldn’t speak — but Parks said she’s certain he wanted her to know who shot him.
“He kept giving me his hands to squeeze, and then he started writing,” she said, recalling one hospital visit. “He put down the word Ice, then he put down the word water. Then he wrote three initials. He wrote LT, Jah and MP ... he said those boys were around.”