Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

16-Year-Old Boy Victim of 'War on Ashland'

By Darryl Holliday | January 13, 2013 3:32pm
 Family members say Cedric Bell's two younger brothers are traumatized by his death.
Family members say Cedric Bell's two younger brothers are traumatized by his death.
View Full Caption
Family

WEST ENGLEWOOD — Months after their older brother was gunned down, the younger brothers of a 16-year-old murder victim remain traumatized. 

Cecric Bell, 16, was fatally shot on a porch March 26, less than a block away from his family's Englewood home on the 1400 block of West 73rd Street.

Arnetta Gilmore said her two younger sons, ages 14 and 11, are showing signs of trauma in the months after their brother’s death, including nightmares that force the younger brother into his mother’s bed for safety. Her older son seldom talks about the shooting.

“I still don’t know if [Cedric] was the target,” Gilmore said. “Another boy was on the porch, but he got away. Another of Cedric’s friends had been shot the day before.”

Neighbors told Gilmore the shots that killed her son came from a white truck that pulled up to the nearby porch. Bell was reportedly struck while trying to dodge bullets, his mother said.

“He was a regular teen boy,” she said. “The only thing with Cedric, like so many kids, is that they want to grow up too fast.”

Bell's grandmother has lived in the family home for 22 years, and said the violence has escalated to the point that retaliatory killings are discussed openly.

“The neighborhood boys have been talking about a war on Ashland,” Mavis Bell, 56, said. “Each side of the street is against the other.”