PELHAM PARKWAY — A 25-year-old man and 20-year-old man were shot in front of a Bronx building early Sunday morning, police said.
The 25-year-old, Adrian Garcia, was dead when police arrived at 1:05 a.m., and was found with a gunshot wound in his neck, the NYPD said.
A memorial with several candles and photos was laid out in front of 815 Pelham Parkway on Sunday, inches from where blood stained a cement wall at an entrance to the Pelham Parkway Houses.
A woman identified by neighbors as Garcia's mother drove up to the site and approched the memorial, clutching a photo in her hands. She set the young man's photo at the memorial and kneeled down, praying and crying on the sidewalk.
"I love you. This is going to be so hard. I'm going to miss you," she said, standing up with the photograph in her arms, hugging it.
Friends and neighbors, who came to the site to mourn Garcia, said the young man had grown up in the housing development but no longer lived there. He still visited friends there frequently, they said.
A neighbor, Sandra, 44, who did not want her last name used, said when she left the building Sunday morning, she saw Garcia lying on the ground bleeding.
"He was a very good person, likeable and everything," she said. "He would give you the shirt off your back, if you needed it. He wasn't a problem child or anything. He was a good person, very lovable."
Anthony Lewis, 28, a longtime friend of the victim, agreed.
"He didn't deserve to die," said Lewis, who works for a local Walgreens. "A good person lost their life last night. That was a sucker move they did," he added, speaking of the shooter.
"I just seen him," said Lewis, moments before Garcia was shot, at a memorial gathering for a young resident who had been shot at the buildings a year before.
"He was thrilled to see me. He was excited, he walked off. Literally 12 minutes later, you started hearing gunshots."
When Lewis went out to see what had happened, he saw Garcia lying on the ground surrounded by spectators.
"The crowd was so thick you couldn't see what happened, but once it cleared, he was on the floor," he said.
The other man, 21, who had suffered a gunshot wound in his leg, was sent to Jacobi Hospital, and in stable condition Sunday.
No arrests had been made Sunday, and police said an investigation was ongoing.
