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Army Vet and Family in Town for Funeral Get Caught in Police Shooting

By Eddie Small | October 1, 2014 9:35am
 Police struck the Mercados' car in the midst of a shooting, the family said.
Police struck the Mercados' car in the midst of a shooting, the family said.
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Alexis Mercado

MOTT HAVEN — A South Carolina family's trip to New York City for a funeral turned into chaos Monday afternoon when they got caught in a police-involved shooting and narrowly missed getting struck by the gunfire.

The fusillade left them with a gaping bullet hole in the hood of the car they were driving and left one of the family members, an Army vet suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, "in a state of panic" because of how close the gunfire came to him, they explained.

Around 5:45 p.m., officers on patrol by East 145th Street and College Avenue started chasing a 20-year-old man who they saw shooting a gun a block away, but the suspect then started running toward and pointing his gun at them, police said.

One officer hit the suspect in the elbow, after which he fled into the nearby Patterson Houses, where police caught up to him.

One of the slugs tore through the hood and struck the engine of Joaquin Mercado Jr.'s 2009 Honda Fit while they were inside the vehicle.

The family had come to the city for Joaquin Mercado Sr.'s funeral Wednesday and were about to start the car to go to a relative's house when the shots rang out.

"This is the car that the family is relying on to get around," said Mercado Jr. "We’re from South Carolina. This brought us from South Carolina to The Bronx and hopefully back, but now it’s disabled because they shot the engine."

The Mercados' car is now part of the police investigation, and the NYPD has not offered them much help in terms of figuring out a new way to get around, according to the family.

"We’ve been on the phone with a million people, and no one seems to care," said Mercado Jr.'s 20-year-old daughter Alexis Mercado.

The situation with the Mercados' car was an accident, and police have reached out to the family to offer help with transportation and information about repairing their vehicle, according to the NYPD.

The aftermath has been difficult, but the shooting itself was also very unnerving, the family said.

Alexis Mercado said she was in the car with her mom, dad and aunt when she heard about five shots.

She described being terrified by the gunfire, especially because of how close one of the bullets came to hitting her dad.

"We all couldn’t sleep last night because we were so worried," she said. "We come up here to bury my grandfather and pay our respects, and this is what we have to deal with?"

Mercado Jr., 48, a contracting specialist at the VA Hospital in Columbia, South Carolina, said he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in the Army from April 1985 through May 2005, a time period that included stints in Somalia and Kosovo.

The shooting triggered his PTSD, he said.

"I felt helpless every time I checked my family because the car wouldn’t run or start to get out of dodge and go to safety," he said. "I was just in a state of panic."

Despite the difficulties they have faced in finding a new way to get around, Mercado Jr. was still adamant that he would get to his father's funeral — the location of which they were keeping private — regardless of what it took.

"If I have to walk, I'll walk," he said.