Javits Frimpong, a 15-year-old boy, was shot in the stomach near Fulton Avenue and East 171st Street in the Bronx just before 9:30 a.m. and later died at St. Barnabas Hospital. Police were searching for three teens who fled the area wearing black sweatsuits and blue surgical masks.
The killing turned a school morning into a homicide scene and left investigators piecing together who was involved. Authorities said Javits may have been on his way to school when he was shot, a detail that made the case feel even more sudden and more public, unfolding in the middle of the day rather than in the shadows.
For Thomas Frimpong, the loss was immediate and personal. He said his son had moved to New York from Ghana about a year ago and generally kept to himself. He also said the principal told him three days earlier that two kids were bullying his son and got suspended for a week. “My son was precious very clever,” he said, adding that he believed the shooting was tied to bullying.
That belief has not been confirmed by investigators, who have not said what led to the shooting. What they have said is enough to show why the search is moving fast: three teens ran off wearing the same kind of clothing, and police are treating them as the best lead they have. For Frimpong, the unanswered question is no longer whether his son’s death matters to the neighborhood. It is who pulled the trigger, and whether the warning signs that family says came days earlier were ignored until it was too late.
