In the wrong place
N. Orleans man slain in Bx. bbq gunfire
A 22-year-old in town from New Orleans to visit family was fatally shot at a Bronx barbecue late Saturday night, police and his brother said Sunday.
Joseph Sanchez, 22, was one of four people, including an 11-yearold boy, who were shot when a fight broke out during Honduran independence celebrations at Claremont Park just after 11 p.m., his brother, Daniel Espinoza, told The Post.
“He came all the way from New Orleans to pass time with the family,” said Espinoza, also 22.
Espinoza was at the park when the gunfire broke out near Teller Avenue and East 172nd Street — but he had lost track of Sanchez.
He said he heard eight or nine blasts, then fled with the rest of the crowd. When he returned, he found out his brother had been killed.
“I heard the shots and I saw people running and I started running, too,” he said. “They were shooting like crazy. Everybody trying to save their lives.”
The 11-year-old was struck in the shoulder and is expected to survive.
Two others were also wounded — a 24-year-old woman who was shot twice in the chest and a 22year-old man who was blasted in the leg and walked into Lincoln Hospital, according to cops.
Espinoza said he typically avoids the park, despite living in the Claremont section of The Bronx, and was only there Saturday night because his brother had told him to come.
“There are a lot of people there trying to make trouble with somebody. When you don’t do nothing, they try to have so many problems with you,” he said.
Espinoza and Sanchez are two of three brothers. Espinoza said their parents back in Honduras “are crying.”
“When somebody kills your son, they are going to feel it, they are going to feel it bad,” he said, adding, “I’m going to miss my brother a lot. He was my brother. He was my blood.”
Three unidentified male suspects ran to a white Nissan and fled the scene after the shooting, police said.
Democratic mayoral candidate Eric Adams called the violence “disturbing.”
“It is really troubling to see an 11-year-old child being shot, and I want to encourage our family members . . . let’s continue to put our children in safe spaces,” he said at an unrelated press conference Sunday. “It is really disturbing to know that during some form of celebration someone would bring a gun and cause that level of violence.”
The former NYPD captain lamented that there are “too many guns on the street,” and reiterated his mission to bring back the NYPD’s recently disbanded, controversial plainclothes anti-crime unit.