Labour Day celebrations in New York turned deadly for one Trinidadian family yesterday.
T&T national Tyreke Borel, 17, who has been living in New York for the past four years, was gunned down during J’Ouvert celebrations along the West Indian Day Parade route in Brooklyn, according to reports in the New York Daily News.
He was the oldest of three children for his mother Alima St Clair.
And while his body is yet to be released by the city medical examiner, his distraught mother said upon release, it will be brought back to Trinidad for burial.
St Clair told the NY Daily News she had cautioned her son to stay at home during the J’Ouvert but he insisted on joining the revelry where he was shot and killed.
“He was just a lovely child who wanted to enjoy the Labour Day. I told him to be safe but he’s 17. He didn’t want to stay home,” St Clair said.
She said police told her Borel was sitting on a bench alone at Flatbush and Empire Boulevard around 3.45 am when he was shot. Police believe he was not the intended target.
A 72-year-old was also wounded in the crossfire, cops said.
“I just want my Tyreke,” St Clair said, leaning her head against a wall and crying.
“I’m just trying to sort out everything.”
Borel’s Facebook page was flooded with condolences from many of his classmates at Boys and Girls High School.
He was one of two people shot dead and five others injured from two other shooting and stabbing incidents. St John’s University student Tiarah Poyau, 22, was the other victim.
Police sources are quoted as saying she was shot at close range above her right eye while at Franklin Avenue and Empire Boulevard where she was enjoying the overnight celebration with three friends around 4.15 a.m. Borel was shot in the chest.
Two people were injured when a motorcycle they were on was hit by a car.
A 66-year-old woman was shot in her arms and hands. A 23-year-old woman was stabbed in the lower back at Ocean Avenue and Empire Boulevard shortly before 4.20 am.
Another person was taken to Methodist Hospital in serious condition after being stabbed in the neck at Eastern Parkway and Classon Avenue around 5.30 am.