12-Year-Old Cop's Son Killed by Stray Bullet in Bronx Street Brawl

A 12-year-old boy is dead after riding his bike straight into the crossfire of a street fight outside a Bronx bodega Saturday afternoon.

Jacob Freytas had just bought a ball inside the Wanda Deli Grocery on Elliott Place near the Grand Concourse in Mount Eden, according to the New York Post. Security footage obtained by the Post shows him walking out, hopping on his bike, and glancing toward a brawl breaking out in the street around 4:50 p.m.

Several men can be seen scuffling, appearing to wrestle over a gun. A man in a white T-shirt pulls a firearm from his waistband and points it toward the fight. He does not appear to aim at Jacob, according to the Post's review of the video. Moments later, Jacob jumps off his bike, clutching his upper chest, and runs back into the store.

Interior surveillance video shows him collapsing on the floor as bystanders look on. He was rushed to NYC Health and Hospitals/Lincoln with a gunshot wound and was pronounced dead Saturday evening.

Two other people were shot during the melee. A 34-year-old man was hit in the left foot and a 25-year-old man was shot in the buttocks, according to the NYPD. Police say both are expected to survive. A witness told ABC7 the shooter fled the scene in a Jeep after five shots rang out. As of Sunday morning, no arrest had been announced and the shooter had not been publicly identified.

A cop's family, blindsided

Jacob's father is an NYPD sergeant who was in Connecticut when he got the news, according to family members who spoke to the Post. His uncle, Julio Lopez, said he was walking his dogs nearby when he heard the shots and saw people running.

"His mom told me he was on the bike," Lopez told the Post. "The bullet went straight into his chest. He fell off the bike."

Lopez described his nephew as a kid who "showed respect" and said he'd seen him just that morning. A family friend, Jose Sanchez, told NBC New York that Jacob and other neighborhood kids "were just riding their bikes minding their business all the time and always at home."

Mamdani responds, again

Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted on X Saturday night that "we cannot accept this violence as normal," calling the shooting a "heinous act" and thanking hospital staff and the NYPD for their work identifying suspects, according to Newsweek. He said he was praying for the recovery of the two wounded adults.

After seven-month-old Kaori Patterson-Moore was fatally shot in a stroller in Williamsburg on April 1, Mamdani said, "This is not our first family to know this pain. Too many children have never grown up into becoming adults," according to Newsweek. After a July 4 shooting at a Coney Island barbecue wounded four children among eight victims, he vowed accountability and said he would "not rationalize a barbecue being interrupted by gunfire and panic." A suspect, Robert Smith, 44, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of attempted murder in that case.

Are these strong statements translating into fewer shootings, or is the city simply logging one preventable child casualty after another regardless of who occupies City Hall? NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch reported on July 2 that shooting incidents from January through that date totaled 322, with 381 victims, down from 397 victims over the same stretch last year, according to Newsweek. That is a real decline. It is also cold comfort to a family whose 12-year-old died walking a bike out of a corner store.

What's unresolved

Investigators had not released the identity or number of shooters as of Sunday morning. It remains unclear how many of the men involved in the brawl were armed, or whether the bullet that killed Jacob came from the man in the white T-shirt seen on video or from someone else entirely. The NYPD has not said whether any weapon has been recovered.

The Wanda Deli Grocery, at Elliott Place and Walton Avenue, remained taped off as a crime scene Saturday evening. No memorial service details for Jacob had been made public as of Sunday.

A police sergeant's family lost a son to a stray round from a fight that had nothing to do with the boy at all.