The 17-year-old boy knifed to death during a clash with a stranger on a Bronx street was preparing to graduate and looking forward to his prom, his heartbroken mother said Thursday.
Jonathan “JJ” Melo was on a stand-up electric scooter, trailing behind his friend and a cousin, who were also on scooters, when he got into an argument with another man outside an apartment building on Beach Ave. near McGraw Ave. in Soundview around 4:34 p.m. Wednesday, cops and the teen’s mom said.
During the ensuing fight, the suspect stabbed the teen in the back and ran off.
Melo was rushed to Jacobi Medical Center, but doctors were unable to save him.
The teen was on his way to a friend’s house to play basketball when he was attacked, his grieving mother told the Daily News.
“He was actually with his cousin and a friend, and they were headed toward a friend’s house,” Raquel Melo, 41, said. “They were going to go play basketball. He had just gotten out of school.”
Based on her conversations with detectives, her son was in the “wrong place at the wrong time,” she said.
“I haven’t slept. It’s kind of just been hitting me in waves,” she said of the unending sadness she’s left with. “I’m just kind of at a loss. I think my energy I’m just putting into remembering my son and doing what’s best for my other kids.”
Melo was bringing up the rear on his stand-up electric scooter when he was attacked. His cousin witnessed the stabbing, but is too grief-stricken to talk about it.
“He’s very traumatized right now,” Melo’s mom said. “They’re kids, you know?”
The knife, his mother said, pierced a vena cava vein, one of the largest veins in the body that brings blood to the heart, his mother said. When she was first alerted to the incident, her son was stable, but his condition worsened at the hospital.
“I got a call letting me know that my son had a wound and that I needed to go to the hospital,” she recalled. “I asked if he was OK. They said, ‘Yes, but please come.’ And a few minutes later, it goes from stable to very bad, because he was already bleeding out, and they had to find the source (of the wound).”
When she arrived at the hospital, her son was unconscious.
“I didn’t get to see my son conscious. I just saw them when they took him to trauma bay and from trauma bay right to surgery, and then that was it,” she recalled. “I got to text him on my way to the hospital, and I let him know, ‘I’m on my way. I love you. God is with you, and you’re gonna be OK.’ But I didn’t know that he wasn’t conscious.”
The teen lived in Soundview about a mile from where he was killed, police said.
JJ was one of four children and Raquel’s oldest son.
“This devastating and unexpected loss has left the family heartbroken and struggling to cope,” a friend of Melo’s wrote on a GoFundMe post seeking donations for his family. “JJ was loved deeply by his family and friends. He brought joy and hope to those around him, and his absence is felt by all who knew him. The Melo family is now navigating the pain of losing their son, while also trying to honor his memory in a way that reflects the love and promise he carried.”
The senior at AECI Charter High School in the South Bronx wanted to embark on a career in real estate and would have turned 18 on July 19. But his entire focus was on his upcoming graduation in June — especially his prom with his girlfriend, Gigi, his mother said.
“They had some nice green matching outfits,” she recalled fondly. “They had been dating since, I believe, last year in October or November. She’s a senior, as well, but she goes to high school upstate somewhere. Really good girl. Good head on her shoulders.”
“(She’s) very distraught, as well,” she said of the girlfriend.
Her son’s death is the second tragedy to befall her family. Her mother-in-law died from a stroke this past weekend, she said.
“My husband, Jonathan’s father, buried his mother on Monday in the Dominican Republic, and he just landed a few minutes ago now to deal with the passing of his son,” she said. “(This) is a trying time for the family.”
Cops were still looking for the stabber. JJ, police said, didn’t have a criminal record and it was not immediately clear what sparked the fight.
“He was innocent of this situation,” his mother said. “There are good kids in the Bronx, too. And unfortunately this happens.”
“My son was the victim of a crime,” she added. “It’s unfortunate. But I trust in the justice system that they will catch the person who did this and he will eventually pay for his crime.”