A gunman who allegedly killed a 29-year-old innocent bystander inside a Bronx bodega during a botched Easter Sunday robbery was arrested and charged with murder Wednesday, police said.
Schward Bee, 31, of Mount Vernon, was picked up around 1 a.m. Wednesday in connection to the deadly March 31 fracas that took the life of party promoter Stefon Barnes inside Gourmet Deli on East Tremont Avenue, authorities said.
The bodega had been crowded – with more than a dozen people inside, including revelers seen on video dancing and singing – when Bee tried to rob one of the patrons, cops have said.
Bee’s target was not Barnes, who had just come from a nearby party he’d hosted, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny previously told reporters.
The man who Bee had intended to rob was struggling to grab the aggressor’s gun, the police official said.
“The robbery victim’s friend sees what’s going on, runs in from the street, grabs the perpetrator in a chokehold and they continue to struggle over the firearm,” Kenny said. “At some point the gun goes off, and unfortunately, Mr. Barnes is struck in his left leg near his groin, loses a tremendous amount of blood, is brought to the hospital and [dies] a couple of hours later.”
Schward, who was also charged with robbery and criminal possession of a weapon, has four prior arrests in the Bronx, Kenny said.
He was convicted of attempted robbery and served time in state prison until 2017, when he was released on parole, records show.
His parole expired in 2020, according to the State Corrections records.
Schward also has a prior bust for menacing in Mount Vernon, Kenny said.
Barnes grew up in Greenville, North Carolina, where he lived with his mother before moving to New York City to live with his father in Harlem as a teenager, his family previously told The Post.
They said he had held down jobs as a store clerk, a truck driver and a UPS delivery driver. His senseless slaying comes on the heels of another family tragedy — his great-aunt died one week earlier.
“This random, senseless violence has become the norm but it has to stop,” his uncle, Anthony Barnes, 59, said days after the slaying. “People dying just because they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time is becoming a regular thing in New York.
“Honestly, I don’t know what to make of Stefon’s death because it’s becoming such a norm, right?” he said. “Too many innocent bystanders are being killed. There are too many random, senseless killings. Too many innocent people are dying.”
Like her grieving brother, Teresa Barnes, who lives in North Carolina, bemoaned the violence that has claimed too many lives in the streets of the five boroughs in recent years.
“New York is getting bad, honestly. It’s not a safe place to be, young or old,” she said. “I wouldn’t move back here. I’m trying to get my parents and I want all my family out.
“It was senseless,” she said of her nephew’s death. “It wasn’t like he was doing anything illegal, he was just an innocent bystander. You can try to stay out of trouble, but you can still be a victim of circumstance.”
