A 15-year-old boy with a rap sheet was arrested — while still wearing an ankle monitor — for a deadly shooting this week during an explosion of violence in The Bronx, police and sources said Friday.
The teenager, identified by law-enforcement sources as Daniel Martinez, was charged with murder for the shooting death of Kelvin Mosquea, 34, outside NYCHA’s Sack Wern Houses Tuesday, authorities said.
The broad daylight shooting is believed to have been the result of a robbery gone wrong, sources said – and added to a weeklong wave of gun violence for the Boogie Down, which saw seven shootings since Saturday, leading four dead out of a dozen injured, officials said.
Stopping the bloodshed will be the primary goal of 1,000-cop deployment Mayor Eric Adams said soon would swarm violent hotspots in the Bronx on foot, although he played coy Friday as to where.
“If we tell you where they’re located, then the bad guys would know where they’re located,” he said during an event with NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
The shooting allegedly by the baby-faced Martinez unfolded as he walked up to Mosquea in front of the public housing building on Croes Avenue near Seward Avenue and accused him of stabbing his friend, sources said.
Martinez, joined by a second person — who remained on the loose Friday — then allegedly shot Mosquea in the chest as they attempted to rob him, cops and sources said.
Mosquea was rushed to Jacobi Medical Center, where he died from his injuries.
The NYPD’s gang database showed Mosquea had links to the Black Stone Gorilla Gang, according to sources. Martinez does not appear in the database but the shooting is being eyed as possibly gang-related.
The other possibly gang-related Bronx shooting in the past week was a gun battle during a basketball tournament in Haffen Park on August 23.
The appalling mass shooting killed a 32-year-old man, identified as Jaceil Banks, injured three others and left an innocent 17-year-old girl fighting for her life after a stray bullet ripped through her face.
A quartet of baby-faced suspects, ages 16, 17, 20 and 25, were arrested in the heedless gunplay.
Adams announced the 1,000-cop surge Thursday from Haffen Park, where locals such as Saul Piazza, a 63-year-old FDNY EMT, cheered the added police visibility.
“Absolutely, it’s a good idea to bring in more cops,” he said.
“I think people need to see them more frequently and it shouldn’t have to be following a major crime or something that’s gained notoriety.”
Erick Torres, 32, a school bus driver who lives near the park, said he believes the uptick in violence is both tied to lower economic status of the area and parents not being involved in their children’s lives.
“Usually (young people), they get into gangs, promising them money like reaping some type of enrichment,” he said.
Martinez, the teen arrested in the unrelated shooting Tuesday, was still wearing an ankle monitor as part of a previous criminal case when he was picked up for the murder by city sheriff’s deputies, sources said.
He has at least two other armed robbery arrests in the Bronx from this spring, including an April 17 incident in which he allegedly stole someone’s phone and wallet on the street while another youngster concealed what appeared to be a gun in his sweatshirt pocket, according to a criminal complaint.
A few weeks later, he and another minor allegedly both flashed guns while they ripped a chain off a pedestrian’s neck and snatched his iPhone as well as his wallet, which held $900, court papers reveal.
Martinez was released on his own recognizance in connection to one of those cases, and in the other, he was ordered held on $3,000 cash bail or $15,000 bond – which he ultimately posted, according to the sources.
He was also arrested in connection to two Manhattan armed robberies from May 7 and May 8 – and ultimately transferred back to the Bronx because of his open matters there, law-enforcement sources said.
Martinez was ordered held without bail during his arraignment Friday in Bronx court on the murder charge.
Mosquea was one of two people killed in separate shootings across the northernmost borough on Tuesday, when two others were also shot and wounded, cops said.
The other fatal victim was identified as Clay Monsanto, 32, who was shot in the back outside an apartment building on Anthony Avenue near Mount Hope Place at around 8:10 a.m., cops said.
Three more people were shot on Wednesday, with one killed, Ryan Hynes, 37, allegedly by their furious neighbor, 44-year-old Jimmy Avila, during a dispute over their shared backyard on College Avenue near East 170th Street in Mount Eden, cops said.
Then, two more people in the Bronx were shot and another man suffered a graze wound to the back of the head just after 9 p.m. — mere blocks from Fordham University.
A 17-year-old was shot in the ankle and thigh and a 20-year-old was shot in the right knee on Marion Avenue, according to the NYPD.
Both were taken to St. Barnabas hospital in stable condition. The 28-year-old who suffered the graze wound was treated at the scene, cops said.
No suspects were arrested in connection to that shooting.
One law-enforcement source said shootings were actually down 30% in The Bronx this month.
The high-profile spate of shootings, such as the neighbors’ dispute, have been driving the recent surge, the source said.
“We have shootings that are not traditional shootings that we normally see,” the source said. “They’re irregular in motive.”
– Additional reporting by Larry Celona and Craig McCarthy
