A 16-year-old boy on his way home from school was gunned down during a clash inside a Brooklyn bodega, police said Saturday.
Marquise Byfield had just stepped into the Livonia Deli & Grocery on Livonia Ave. near Ashford St. in East New York when he got into a fight with another teen around 4:15 p.m. Friday, cops and store manager Karrar Obaid told the Daily News.
“The first one came in and the second one came in behind him, and they started fighting,” Obaid, 35, recalled. “I was behind the counter. When we heard shots, we lay down (on the floor).”
Courtesy of family
Marquise Byfield, 16, was fatally shot on Friday. (Courtesy of family)
Marquise was shot in the chest and groin area, cops said. Medics rushed him to Brookdale University Hospital, where he died a short time later.
His mother, Abigail Byfield, said Marquise was coming home from school when he was shot.
The teen was looking forward to his 17th birthday on July 1, his mom said, her voice cracking from a night of crying.
“He was going to be 17, but now he’ll forever be 16,” she told the Daily News. “He was a beautiful kid. We all loved him. His teachers love him. Friends love him. Everybody love him.”
At least two shots were fired, witnesses said. Bullets shattered a glass refrigerator door behind Marquise, who fell to the ground right next to the store’s counter.
“There was blood everywhere,” Obaid said. “Police heard the shots and they came in right away and they see the guy on the floor. They tried to make sure he was still alive. But then, after about 45 minutes, we heard he died.”
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
A 16-year-old boy was fatally shot inside a bodega on Livonia Ave. in East New York on Friday afternoon. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
The shooter, who is believed to be between 15 and 16 years old, managed to slip away before police arrived. He was still being sought by authorities Saturday.
The teen’s mother suspects her son was the victim of a robbery that got out of control.
“I’m understanding that he might have got set up or, who knows? They might have been trying to rob him and he was trying to defend himself and they had a gun?” she asked as she tried to find some kind of reason behind the senseless violence. “I’m hoping for justice for my kid. (That) it’s not another unsolved murder.”
“Now I’m a mother of gun violence,” she said, trying to wrap her mind around what happened in the last 24 hours. “You see this on TV. You watch…and now I’m living it. It hits different. It’s totally different. I’m paralyzed right now. I’m in shock.”
At least one witness said it appeared Marquise ducked into the deli in an attempt to hide from the shooter.
Marquise lived in Brownsville, about a mile from where he was killed, cops said. He attended Spring Creek Community School.
The Livonia Deli was on Marquise’s route to the subway station at the corner, his mother said.
“He got off the bus. The train station’s right there,” she said. “He’s only supposed to take the train at least three to four stops to come home.”
Marquise has an older brother and two younger siblings. Abigail was at a park near her home with one of her younger children when Marquise was killed.
When she returned home, NYPD detectives approached her and broke the terrible news.
“The cops (told me),” she said. “I was waiting for him to come home. It was a good day so far. It was looking like a good day. And it surely wasn’t.”
“He was not a kid who goes around and bothers people,” she added of her son. “He didn’t deserve this at all.”
The killing came a day before Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced the arrest of 18-year-old Zahir Davis, who was wanted in the shooting death of a 15-year-old boy during a water balloon fight in a Queens park a week ago.
Davis fled to Jamaica, but was grabbed and arrested late Friday when he flew back to New York.
After detectives left the deli, Obaid and his co-workers closed the store for more than eight hours as they cleaned up the blood and repaired the refrigerator’s shattered glass door, he said.
“I feel bad for these kids and the families that have to protect the kids,” the deli manager said, reflecting on the violence. “If you kill somebody, you spend the rest of your life in jail. It’s not worth it.”
“Everybody is angry for nothing,” he added. “You should be more humble and more forgiving.”
Marquise’s mother is hoping someone steps forward and helps police find her son’s killer.
“I encourage anybody to speak up and say what they saw,” she said. “Give his name, where he’s hiding.”
Addressing the killer, she said, “I’m sorry that your life is now going to be over along with my son’s. But you need to pay for your crime.”
