By The newspaper
05 Sep 2023, 01:14 AM EDT
Javier Sánchez, a 33-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant, was shot to death during an alleged robbery outside a gas station near his home in Brooklyn (NYC).
The victim was the father of a girl and was on his way home, located less than two blocks away, when he was surrounded by a group of men who shot him in the head early Sunday morning, the New York police said, looking for five suspects for the crime.
Sánchez arrived in the United States 13 months ago from Ambato, Ecuador, where her 4-year-old daughter lives with her mother. “I was coming home,” she told Daily News his cousin Paul Euza, 25 years old. “He went to a party, danced and hung out.”
An Ecuadorian immigrant father was shot dead in a robbery gone wrong in Bushwick.
Javier Sanchez, 33, was only trying to walk home, his cousin said. https://t.co/6mREe8I8NC
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) September 4, 2023
Video captured at least three men confronting Sanchez in the parking lot of the BP gas station at 1525 Myrtle Ave. next to Irving Ave. in the Bushwick neighborhood around 4 am Sunday.
Footage from inside the gas station store previously captured one of the men in the group grabbing a case of Modelo beer before meeting a friend inside. It is not clear from the video what role, if any, either of those two men played in the shooting.
The suspects reportedly approached Sánchez demanding that he hand over his wallet, which he did, but then they wanted his backpack. He resisted because inside it were his passport and driver’s license, he told ABC News his uncle Pablo Tayupanta. The victim worked in construction and as an Uber driver.
No arrests have been made or suspects identified. Anyone with information should call 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) and in Spanish 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). Also through crimestoppers.nypdonline.org or by text to 274637 (CRIMES), followed by TIP577. All communications are strictly confidential.
Police data shows nine robberies within a one-block radius of the gas station during the first eight months of this year, including an assault on the gas station on March 8.
“Here there are many robberies. They are men from the neighbourhood, so they just drink in the area,” said Waquir Mazhar, manager of the BP petrol station. “That’s why we had to install bulletproof glass. I think it was last year after we were robbed.”
Gas stations have become dangerous areas in New York. In a similar incident, in March a 51-year-old man was shot in the head at dawn as he was refueling at a gas station in the Bronx.
In November, a Bronx gas station attendant was shot in the head while working. That same month, a 23-year-old Guatemalan man died after being hit with a wooden board during a confrontation with a group of men in front of a gas station in Queens (NYC).
In October, a thief beat a gas station employee in Brooklyn (NYC) while his two accomplices robbed the establishment.