Tragedy stalks the family of a 6-year-old boy shot during a mass shooting at a Fourth of July family cookout in Coney Island — the youngster’s dad was shot to death before he was born and his teenage aunt was gunned down when he was a toddler, his traumatized mother the Daily News.
The little boy was the youngest of eight people, half of them children, shot when a gunman wearing a ski mask opened fire in the courtyard of a W. 30th St. apartment tower near Surf Ave. in Brooklyn about 10:35 p.m. July 4, cops said.
“(My son) said to me, ‘Mommy, they shot me. That person tried to kill me,’’ the victim’s mother, Ineisha Greene, told The News. “My son don’t know what’s going on, but he knows what happened to him. He’s very smart. He knows exactly what happened to him.”
Greene doesn’t like to talk much about the boy’s dead father, saying she’s worried the dad’s enemies might make the connection and seek out her son for retaliation.
“I don’t want my son to be on social media or the news, because my son’s father had problems with a lot of people in the world, and a lot of people would already wish bad things on my son,” she explained.
His aunt’s murder made headlines in 2022 — Keyaira Rattray-Brothers, 17, was killed when a revenge-seeking gunman survived an attempt on his life, then went on a four-day shooting spree in December 2022.
The gunman, Sundance Oliver, murdered a 21-year-old man just 10 hours before shooting Rattrey-Brothers in the Kingsbridge Houses, according to police.
On Wednesday, Robert Smith, 44, was arrested and charged with attempted murder for the July 4 shooting. At his arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court early Friday morning, prosecutors referred to the crime as a “mass shooting.” Smith was ordered held without bail.
“They (police) keep saying gang retaliation, gang retaliation. That had nothing to do with our family,” Greene said. “Like, this don’t make sense. My son is 6 years old. What gang could he possibly be in? What could he possibly be a part of at 6 years old?”
Greene, her son and their extended family were celebrating Independence Day with a barbecue and fireworks when the shooting started.
“We were having a family cookout. This is our tradition,” said Greene. “Long story short, I was sitting down in the chair and the fireworks were going on — but the shots was right behind the fireworks so we didn’t know that’s what that was at first.”
Greene said she was enjoying the party right up until she noticed blood gushing from her cousin’s leg.
“That’s when I knew it was gunshots,” she said. “I ran my son in the house and I lifted up his shirt to see if he was shot.”
Her son was struck in the chest, the bullet passing through his body and then hitting his wrist.
“There was so many kids there that got shot. So many people got shot. So many of my family members got shot,” the boy’s mother said.
The little boy’s grandmother was grazed by four bullets or shrapnel as she waited for food, she said.
“We were in line to get food, next thing I knew, something hit my leg,” said the grandmother, Carlene Pearsall. “I thought it was a firecracker. So I didn’t pay it no mind. Then it hit me again and again and again.”
Pearsall suffered no serious injuries but her 14-year-old son wasn’t so lucky.
“He was struck in both legs,” said Pearsall. “The doctor said it will be a while before he can walk again. He’s going to now live with a bullet in both legs.”
In addition to Greene and Pearsall’s sons, a 7-year-old boy was shot in both legs, a 12-year-old boy was struck in the leg, a 25-year-old woman was shot in the leg, a 33-year-old man was shot in the chest, and a 37-year-old man was wounded in the shoulder, authorities said.
The most serious wound was suffered by a 21-year-old woman struck in the chest and rushed to the hospital in critical condition. Her brother told The News last week his sister is on the mend after undergoing surgery.
All of the victims are part of the same extended family except for one family friend, who cops believe was the intended target, police sources said.
The shooting happened just two blocks away from where drill rapper Truron Roach-Martin, 24, who performed under the name Briscoe, was fatally shot in the face and chest July 1. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch referred to his killing as gang-related and said investigators are looking into whether it’s connected to the Fourth of July mass shooting.
Pearsall said she does not believe there is a connection and has no idea why her family was targeted.
“We don’t even know that boy that got killed. That had nothing to do with us. So y’all are retaliating on the wrong people…. Nobody that got shot lives in Coney Island,” she said. “So we had nothing to do with no gang retaliation. We don’t know nothing about that.”