BUSHWICK — A 17-year-old boy was fatally shot in the head and his cousin wounded outside a deli early Friday in a shooting that investigators believe may have been sparked by a dispute over a girl, police and family said.
Kieth Kyser, left a party at his house with his 14-year-old cousin and a group of others and headed to a deli near Broadway and Jefferson Avenue when two men approached and tried to shake their hands about 1:50 a.m., NYPD officials said.
Instead of the handshake, the cousins were fired on, police said.
"We was walking from the store. We came right around the block and [the assailants] came from behind the bushes. They started shooting. They didn't say nothing," said a woman describing herself as Kyser's sister, who was with the group at the time but declined to provide her name.
"I was right there next to him. They were about to turn the corner and they started shooting at us," she said.
Investigators were questioning someone in connection to the shooting Friday afternoon, police said.
Neighbors recalled hearing about nine shots ring out.
"It sounded like it was from an automatic or something. It went on forever," said Debbie Lewis, 57. "A female voice was screaming, 'Oh my God, he's dead! He's dead!' People were hysterical crying and screaming."
(DNAinfo/Trevor Kapp)
Kyser was hit in the head and pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital, police said.
The other boy was hit in the left thigh and treated at the same hospital, police said.
"The 14-year-old, we're talking to him. I don't know exactly how much information he's provided just yet," said NYPD Deputy Chief Jeffrey Maddrey.
There were no immediate arrests, but police were questioning someone Friday afternoon, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce.
"We do have someone we're speaking to and we'll go forward from there. We're trying to find out exactly what happened. We don't believe the dispute was at the house party. It was something else and we'll find out as we go forward," Boyce added.
Investigators think the shooting may have been sparked by a dispute over a girl, police said.
Family who visited the scene Friday morning said Kyser was kind and forgiving.
"If you didn't have it, he gave it to you. He loved everybody around him, no matter what. Argue with him one hour, the next hour y'all was back friends. You couldn't stay mad at him. All he did was crack jokes all day. He was mad funny," Kyser's sister said.
Others were devastated by the boy's death.
"I can't eat, sleep, nothing. He was my favorite. Me and him went everywhere with each other. We never left each other's side for anything. We were always there for each other. Now, I can't even see him no more," said Kyser's cousin, Tyshamik Manuel, 18.
"He never wanted to hurt nobody, nothing. He was calm. He walked away from stuff. I can't believe they did that to him," Manuel added.
Relatives remembered him as a "loving person."
"He liked his music, fashion and his money. He loved his family," added Tiffany Smith, 23, who described herself as Kyser's god-sister.
"He was a loving person. He was not a bad person. He didn't have beef with nobody."
Kyser had a tight relationship with his cousin who was wounded in the shooting.
"They was mad close. They was together every day, every day," Kyser's sister noted.
