A 44-year-old man attending a memorial barbecue suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the leg on a Bronx street corner Saturday night, police said, and his neighbors suspect the wound may have been self-inflicted.
A 911 call led NYPD officers to find the victim shot in the right leg on the corner of W. 175th St. and Macombs Road in Morris Heights just before 11 p.m., according to cops.
Medics took the man to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he died. Police have not yet released his name.
The victim was attending an annual barbecue to celebrate a memorial mural showing the names of people who have recently died in the neighborhood, friends told the Daily News.
“Now they’re gonna put him on the wall,” said a woman who passed by the scene, shaking her head as she walked by.
Police took a person of interest into custody at the scene, but so far, no one has been charged.
One friend, Estiven Nunez, 28, was about half a block away when it happened, but he did not witness any violence or anything that might suggest his pal was shot. Nunez and others said they believed the victim carried a gun for his own protection.
“It was an accident. It was a tragedy that happened. That’s all,” Nunez said. “No one was shooting at each other … 90% chance the gun went off by mistake and it hit an artery or something and he passed away, unfortunately. That’s a tragedy.”
Several witnesses described the gathering as calm and said they did not hear gunshots or see any fights.
Another friend, a 58-year-old man who gave his nickname, Shadow, said people on the block treat each other like family.
“There was nobody that was gonna have animosity towards anyone because everyone that we knew there was part of a family,” he said, adding that when the victim was hit, no one scattered from the scene to escape gunfire.
The NYPD referred to the shooting as a homicide, but wouldn’t comment Sunday on the neighbors’ self-inflicted wound theory except to say the death was still under investigation.
Several neighbors spoke glowingly about the victim, whom they referred to as Thomas.
One friend, Henry, 60, said he lived in the area for years and saw the victim and his children grow up around him.
“He’s a good guy. He was a neighborhood dude,” Henry said. “He got kids. He got a son that do music.”
“He wasn’t a violent person. He didn’t have issues,” said another friend who’s known the victim for 35 years. “He worked a 9-to-5 job. He raised his kids. He wasn’t married but he has a current live-in girlfriend. It was, in my opinion, an accident. An unfortunate accident. That’s what I think happened.”
The victim knew several of the names on the mural, his long-time pal said. “That mural represents people who grew up here. Like I said, my brother’s on there. My nephew’s on there.”
The mural shows a stone angel on a pedestal flanked by two large gravestones in a cemetery. “Welcome To Da Road,” an inscription above the angel reads.
“He knows a lot of the people that’s on that mural. He was here celebrating with us,” the friend said. “He wasn’t violent. He worked. There was no enemies that we knew of. He just wasn’t that type of person. I think it was an unfortunate accident.”
