14-Year Old Gang Member Shot On His Way To School

On Friday morning a 14-year-old child was shot and murdered in the Bronx.  The incident happened in Concourse Village at around 8:30 AM, at Sheridan Avenue near East 167th Street. The victim who was shot three times in the torso and once in the head was identified as Christopher Duran.

After he had left the apartment where he was living together with his parents the boy stopped at a laundromat and afterwards headed to school where he went together with his younger brother and a friend.  When the gunman approached Christopher and shot him in the face the other two boys hid under cars while the shooting ended. The two assailants who left Christopher on the pavement with three other wounds to the abdomen were seen leaving the crime scene.

A law-enforcement source said about the child that he was a gangbanger. He was known in the Morrisania neighborhood as already being on the road to doom.  A woman even said that the terrorized the neighborhood. Another man said about Christopher that he was “no good”. He explained how during summer time he saw the boy fighting in the street but he continued fighting even when the man urged him to stop. In addition Christopher would not stop fighting even though the person he was fighting with did not want to fight anymore.

A video image of the alleged shooter was released by the New York Police Department. He was wearing a hoodie over his head and across his face he had a red bandana. The gunman is assumed to be in his late teens. Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said that the shooting was captured on video by surveillance cameras on the street. After the shooting the gunman left and a short time afterwards the Emergency Medical Service workers arrived and pronounced the body dead at the scene. Christopher and the gunman are believed to have known each other.

Christopher’s older brother was one of the leaders of a violent and notorious gang known under the name of 280. However police do not believe that the boy was mistaken for his brother. A police source said that Christopher was specifically targeted:

“You’re not going to confuse this guy with his older brother. It’s believed this guy was purposely targeted, directly targeted.”

Jason Perez, a man who was cleaning the stoop of a building nearby the place where the incident took place said that seen him lurking up and down the block all morning.Image Source: The Wall Street Journal