A 15-year-old boy from Ghana was chased down and fatally shot on Thursday morning while on his way to school in the Bronx.
The New York City police department (NYPD) received a report on Thursday morning about a shooting near Corona Park in the Bronx, a police spokesperson said on Friday. At about 9.24am, responding officers found Javits Frimpong with a gunshot wound to his stomach.
Investigation Underway
Javits was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police have not made any arrests, and an investigation is ongoing as authorities search for three teenage boys in connection with the shooting.
Surveillance footage reportedly captured Javits running, with a person wearing all black trailing behind. Another angle of video footage appeared to show masked individuals in dark clothing fleeing the scene of the shooting.
Community Shocked
The attack has shaken the Bronx's Claremont neighborhood and the city's west African community.
“I lost him,” the teenager's father, Thomas Frimpong, told reporters on Thursday. “I don't know what to do now.”
The fatal shooting came as Javits marked one year of being in New York after arriving from Ghana, Frimpong said. He described his son as “clever” and “quiet”. Javits was being bullied at the DreamYard preparatory school, according to Frimpong.
Bullying Reports
Frimpong said the high school's principal, who could not be reached for comment by phone or email, informed him recently that two students were suspended for harassing Javits.
An NYPD spokesperson declined to comment on Friday on whether the reports of bullying were related to the attack.
Ghana's minister of foreign affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, condemned the attack in a Friday statement. “We will pursue justice and we will make sure that those who did this do not get away with it.”
“Just one year ago, Javits arrived in the United States from Ghana to reunite with his father and begin a new chapter of his life. Like so many Ghanaian immigrant families, his family came together in America with hopes of greater opportunity, security, and a promising future,” the Ghana diaspora public affairs collective, a US-based non-profit, also said in a Friday statement. “That future has now been violently taken away.”
