A Brooklyn man who dedicated part of his life to mentoring troubled youth was shot to death in a mistaken identity when a shooter mistook the vehicle that looked like one used that same night in a robbery, authorities reported.
Identified as Shaquary Bryant, 28, was driving for his usual shift to do night tutoring at a residence for teenagers in trouble with the law on January 24, around 11:25 p.m. when he was struck by a bullet to the chest while behind the wheel of his blue Honda Accord in Brownsville.
“My son was shot for no reason,” Bryant’s father, Brian Cook, told the Daily News. “It is very, very painful. He died for no reason. He was going to work. He is just terrible.”
The trouble began early in the evening when thieves brazenly stole a Mercedes car that was parked near a group of men who were on Herkimer St. near Rockaway Ave., officials said.
“We have a group of men hanging out… A man joins the group in a new Mercedes,” said New York Police Department (NYPD) Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. “A black Honda stops and blocks the Mercedes.”
The 35-year-old man who was inside the Mercedes was sleeping. Two individuals opened the vehicle door and showed him a gun and told him to “get out of the car,” one of them explained to the police.
“The robbery happens and the Mercedes is stolen,” Kenny explained.
The thieves fled at full speed in two cars, the stolen Mercedes and the black Honda in which they arrived at the scene of the robbery, said the NYPD chief of detectives.
Bryant, who was on his way to work in a blue Honda Accord, stopped at the same intersection shortly after the robbers sped away, deputies said.
Believing that the deceased’s Honda was one of the men involved in the car theft, someone in the group that had been robbed pulled out a gun and pulled the trigger on Bryant from a distance, receiving three shots through the door of his car. vehicle, officers said.
A Brooklyn man who mentored troubled youth was shot dead in a tragic case of mistaken identity
Gunman mistook his car for a similar vehicle used in a carjacking earlier that evening
“My son was shot for nothing,” the victim’s father told the Daily Newshttps://t.co/yVkanidUmu
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) February 25, 2024
“One hundred percent, an innocent bystander here,” Kenny said of Bryant and the Daily News reported.
When authorities arrived at the scene, they found Bryant with half his body outside the car in the driver’s seat of the 2018 Honda Accord with North Carolina license plates.
The victim appeared to be trying to get out of the vehicle to find someone to help him, but lost consciousness, one of the NYPD officials said. He was rushed to Brookdale University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Cook testified that he had mixed emotions upon learning that the homicide was part of mistaken identity.
“It gives me a little peace knowing that my son was not involved in anything negative. That it was a mistake,” said the father. “That doesn’t bring my son back. I want the person responsible for his death to be captured and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
So far no arrests have been made in Bryant’s murder, police said.
The deceased worked as a youth development counselor for Good Shepard Services, at the Barbara Blum Residence for troubled youth in East New York since 2019.
“He had conversations with them, took them to the field and made sure they were focused on their schoolwork,” his sister Najah Kingwood previously said. “Making sure that if they were foolish, they were on the right path…He helped keep them on the right path.”
Her father said he worked the night shift to have days off to care for his five-year-old daughter, Zahara.
“If you saw him, he was with his daughter,” Bryant’s stepfather, Densford Peters, previously noted.
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