A young man was fatally struck in the head by a stray bullet while paying a visit to the Bronx convenience store where he used to work, shocked friends and relatives said Thursday.
Daoud “David” Marji was walking back to Unk Candy and Grocery on University Ave. near W. Kingsbridge Road after grabbing a vape pen from his car when he was struck in the head by the stray slug about 4:55 p.m. Wednesday, surveillance video obtained by the Daily News shows. He collapsed in front of the store where he used to work.
He was the second person killed by a stray bullet to the head in the city in two days.
Marji was visiting his old boss and colleagues when he was hit. The Yonkers resident was also planning to hang out with a friend visiting the area from Detroit, his distraught father, Saed Marji, 56, said.
It was the Detroit friend who delivered the awful news to Marji’s family.
Marji’s father rushed to the hospital, but his son was already dead. He later saw security footage showing his son’s murder.
“You have to be very careful, don’t go to the bad areas,” the father said. “It’s a bad area where he was. You have to be worried. But he’s been there a lot. Everybody there, they know him.”
A woman who only identified herself as Nesrin, said she’s lived above Marji’s family in Yonkers for more than 15 years and considers them her extended family. Marji was like a cousin to her.
“I cannot believe it,” the 54-year-old said. “It’s very sad. “I see him every day, It was always ‘I love you, cousin.’ … He was very nice and helpful. All the neighbors loved him. No problems with anybody. Very peaceful.”
Video shows Marji calmly walking down the street, toking on a vape pen, when he hears something, turns to look behind him and slumps to the ground.
“He went to his car to get a vape and was walking back,” said a convenience store worker, who identified himself as Ray. “He was just walking then it looked like he turned around and that was it. Flash. Gone.”
The shots that killed Marji were fired from across the street and down the block, police sources said.
A few seconds before the shots were fired, a woman left an apartment building next door with two small children in tow, the video shows. The woman and the children — holding hands as they crossed the street — walked right past the path the bullets that killed Marji took.
Two men were hanging outside the store when the shooting took place, the video shows. One hit the floor when the shots were fired as the other ran to the door.
Medics rushed Marji to St. Barnabas Hospital, but he couldn’t be saved.
A 33-year-old woman shot in the hip later showed up at Woodhull Hospital in Brooklyn seeking help. Cops determined she was also hit by a stray bullet during the same incident. She is expected to survive.
The woman, Tania Tubon, told the Daily News that she was on her way home after work with her two sons when she was struck in the hip by one of the stray bullets.
“I was leaving work to go home. I was walking to the train, and I heard three or four shots,” Tubon said. “People started screaming and running. I thought someone hit me in the side, like a punch. When I checked my hip, I saw a little wound. At first I saw a little hole in my clothes, and then saw the blood from the hole.”
By the time Tubon grasped the situation, she said, “I was already on the train, and it was getting hard to walk, so I went to the hospital near my home,” adding: “I was in the hospital for a few hours, and they took good care of me.”
“It’s scary. If I’d been a few feet over. It could have been me who died,” Tubon said. “I’m scared for my two sons. It’s very difficult to live in the city. It’s crazy.”
Tubon is originally from Ecuador and said she’s been in New York City with her 10- and 14-year-old sons for five years.
In an eerie coincidence, similar to the victim, Tubon installs plumbing for a living, although she says she did not know him. She is taking the week off before she goes back to work.
“I want them to catch, to capture the men who did this,” Tubon said. “They are bad people.”
The gunman and three accomplices, all wearing ski masks and dark-colored sweatsuits, fled north on University Ave. in a gray Honda Civic, cops said. No arrests have been made.
Witnesses told News 12 The Bronx that there were two shooters who had walked by a group standing outside the store before they opened fire.
“He was a nice guy,” Ray said about Marji. “Like everyone else he was getting better in life, getting comfortable from what I seen from the outside. He hasn’t been here in years. He just came by to say ‘Hi’ to the boss. I guess wrong time, wrong place.”
Marji was currently working as a plumber but also helped out at a relative’s smoke shop and did other odd jobs to make ends meet, Nesrin said.
“He was looking for another job,” she said. ‘He was telling my son, ‘I wanna work more, I wanna save money.’ He had plans.”
The gunman who indiscriminately opened fire on University Ave. ended those plans, Nesrin said bitterly.
“[I’m] very mad you know. He was very young. He’s 28. He’s my kids’ age,” she said. “[The shooter] destroyed his family. His mother, his dad, his brother. Ruined their lives.”
“Nobody can believe what happened to him,” said Mona Marjieh, 66. a next-door neighbor and distant cousin through marriage. “He’s a very gentle man. He’s a very nice guy. Very generous guy. Very honest guy.”
Cops on Thursday were searching for more surveillance footage that could give them a better understanding of what happened and help them identify the gunman.
The killing took place a day after Harlem businesswoman and community leader Excenia Mette, 61, was fatally struck in the head by a stray bullet when she went to check on her grandson and was caught in crossfire between rival gunmen, cops said.
Police arrested one of the gunmen at the scene of the 10:20 p.m. shooting Wednesday. The second shooter, who cops say fired the bullet that killed Mette, has not been caught.
Originally Published: April 24, 2025 at 8:41 AM EDT
