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Brandon Hendricks was a promising basketball star in Bronx, New York. But a night out with friends turned to tragedy when he was gunned down by an unknown assailant. His grieving mother, Eve Hendricks, vowed to see justice done in her son’s murder.
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“Let me tell you something: Until the day I die, I will make sure you spend the rest of your life behind bars,” reports the NY Daily News.
“There will be no peace for you,” Hendricks said at a vigil in her son’s memory. “And you are so lucky you’re not in Jamaica, because I would chop every bone in your body … because you took away my life. You have no idea what you did to me.”
The Daily News says that Brandon, 17, was the captain of the Monroe Eagles basketball team and had just graduated from Metropolitan Soundview High School. He was just two miles from his home at a party when someone started shooting and he was hit.
“I went for a walk. He went to a barbecue. I got a call. That’s the worst day of my life,” his mother said at the vigil. “I can’t look at a picture of him without wanting to die. I wanna jump off somebody’s bridge.”
Brandon was on his way to play college basketball. Police say he was an innocent bystander who was caught in the crossfire as gun violence is on the rise in New York City last Sunday just before midnight. He was shot in the neck and died of his injuries at the hospital.
“He was an athlete. He was a leader. He was charming. Everybody loved him,” Monroe assistant coach Salgado told the New York Post. “He was just a people’s person. That’s why it hurts so much, because he wasn’t a street kid.”
Brandon’s best friend Hammad Singleton said they were at a friend’s birthday party when shots were fired and they started running. He said that’s when Brandon told him he’d been hit.
He says Brandon’s last words were, “Call my mom.”
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“It really wasn’t meant for him,” Singleton told the Post. “Wrong place, wrong time. The people who were with me are all basketball players. Nothing to do with the streets.”
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