The mother of a teenager fatally shot in the head on his way to a friend’s birthday party in the Bronx hopes his cowardly killers and their families suffer.
Victim Joshua Sparrow, 18, and his 15-year-old cousin were just about to enter the Morrisania apartment building where the party was being held when they were confronted by three masked men about 7 p.m. last Monday, cops and family said.
“I want to see them suffer in jail. I want to see them rot,” the victim’s mother, Jenny Sparrow, 36, said of the gunmen, who have not been caught.
“I’m going to be honest with you, I want their families to suffer. Because we pay attention to our kids. None of my kids are murderers. My son wasn’t looking for trouble. They were.”
Joshua was one of six teens to die from gun violence in the city during a frightening five-day stretch. He had nothing but a good time on his mind when he was killed, his mother says.
“He liked parties, girls, his friends. He loved his family. Nobody could say anything bad about my child. My son wasn’t a troublemaker. My son did not argue,” she said. “He had just a beautiful smile. He always laughed. He was happy.”
The grieving mother said the teen’s cousin recounted the events leading to the bloodshed outside the building on Rev. James A. Polite Ave. near E. 164th St. to his own mom, who then relayed the narrative to her.
“[The suspects were] already waiting. My son was on his way to a friend’s birthday. He was not thinking of the enemy. He wasn’t thinking of no beef. He wasn’t thinking of nothing,” Jenny Sparrow said. “He was approached by three young hotheads that were already carrying, with masks on their faces, and they were grilling my son.”
Sparrow said her son asked the trio, “What’s good?” to which they asked, in return, if “he was good.” Joshua said, “Yes,” before continuing to the residential building’s front doors.
Shots rang out and Joshua was struck once in the back of the head and once in the torso.
“They were walking away. My son was trying to avoid it. His cousin was like, ‘Come on.’ They were walking away and they shot him,” his mother said.
“That was cowardly. You are a cowardly person, waiting for my son to walk away when you couldn’t face him like a man. Y’all couldn’t jump my son but you pulled out a gun when his back was turned?”
Police responding to a 911 call found Joshua mortally wounded in the building’s lobby. Medics rushed him to Lincoln Hospital, where he died. No arrests have been made.
Joshua’s birth had special meaning to his mother.
“He was my gift from my mother,” she explained. “My mother died in 2005 in January from cancer and three months later I found out I was pregnant. He was born the next year, Jan. 7. He came home looking identical to my mother.”
“He always was a dancer. I remember having the ultrasound and he was in my stomach, literally dancing in the ultrasound,” she added. “My baby could sing. He could dance. He was a jokester. He was very respectful and he was a good kid.”
In the days following her son’s slaying, Sparrow woke up screaming and was unable to keep food down.
“I wanted to shave my hair. I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to die,” she said. “The one thing that gave me hope and purpose, something to live for, when my mother was taken by cancer, was … there was never a murder in my family.”
“We’ve all dealt with sickness. We know you get old, you get sick, you die,” she added. “We know that. But murder?”
The teen had plans to enroll in a program this winter to complete his GED.
“My son always wanted to be a lawyer,” his mother said. “I told him, ‘You could do it, Baby. Whatever you want you can do it.’ ”
Adding to the difficulty in processing the sudden loss, Sparrow had hardly spoken to Joshua since he moved out of her Brooklyn apartment in August due to ongoing strife with his 15-year-old brother.
After Joshua moved to his aunt’s Bronx apartment Sparrow, concerned for his safety, wanted him to return to Brooklyn, but it was difficult to contact the teen.
“His brother kept saying, ‘Ma, I’m gonna go get my brother,’ ” Sparrow said. “I kept telling him, ‘Make it right with your brother.’ He said, ‘I know, Ma, I’m gonna get him this week.’ ”
Joshua’s death capped off a shocking rash of teen shooting deaths in the city.
The bloodshed began when 16-year-old Clarence Jones was shot in the torso by a pair of gunmen on Razor scooters near W. 124th St. and Lenox Ave. in Harlem about 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 24, He was about nine blocks from home when he was killed, cops said. A week later, police arrested a 15-year-old boy for the slaying and charged him with murder.
The day after Clarence’s slay, 15-year-old Malachi Deberry was shot to death about 8:40 p.m. at Lenox Road and Rockaway Parkway in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Malachi was just a few blocks from home when he was killed.
That same day, 18-year-old McNally Zamor died after being shot in the head Oct. 16 in Canarsie, Brooklyn. A 15-year-old gunman was nabbed the following day and charged with attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon. Charges will likely be upgraded in the wake of the victim’s death.
About 11:40 p.m. on Oct. 26, 16-year-old Tae’Arion Mungo was shot in the chest on Auburn Place near N. Portland Ave. in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, less than 600 feet from where he lived with his father and grandmother in the Ingersoll Houses. He died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Brooklyn Methodist.
About 7:20 p.m. the next day, 15-year-old Tristan Sanders was shot twice in the chest in a hail of gunfire in a hallway of an Albany Houses apartment building on St. Marks Ave. near Troy Ave. in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. He died at Kings County Hospital.