Harrowing video captured 15-year-old Javits Frimpong sprinting through his Bronx neighborhood in a desperate attempt to escape an attacker before he collapsed from a fatal gunshot wound Thursday morning.
The Ghanaian immigrant, who had recently arrived in the United States, was walking to 329 The DreamYard Preparatory School when the shooting erupted around 9:25 a.m. At East 171 Street and Third Avenue in the Claremont section. Police and law enforcement sources said Frimpong took a bullet to the stomach and was initially listed in stable condition at St. Barnabas Hospital before succumbing to his injuries.
His father, Thomas Frimpong, 60, believes the killing is connected to ongoing bullying his son endured at school. The principal had called him just two days before the murder with alarming news about the quiet teenager.
“He said, two boys were fighting with my son, and the two boys got suspended,” the father said.
Then came the call no parent expects.
“The principal called me that my son has been shot,” Thomas Frimpong said, recounting how he rushed to the hospital and later had to deliver the devastating news to relatives still in Ghana.
“I just called his mother [in Ghana] and even I can’t hear her voice, crying, crying, crying. All the family members are crying,” he said, his own emotions breaking through.
Three males dressed in all black, believed to be between 16 and 18 years old, were spotted fleeing after the gunfire, according to police. The video shows Frimpong running alongside one figure in dark clothing who stopped as the teen continued his desperate flight.
An 18-year-old witness, Karolinne Guerrero, was walking to school when she heard the shot ring out from a nearby park.
“I heard like a gunshot. I’m like, ‘Am I tripping?’ It came from, like, inside the park,” Guerrero said.
She immediately continued to school to avoid involvement.
“I feel scared ’cause I live right there. I’m like, yo, I’m scared,” she added.
A neighbor who watched the tragedy unfold from his window offered a chilling account of how the attack transpired. The man, who declined to give his name, said two boys “ambushed” the 15-year-old.
“Ran after him, shot him, ran off into the park,” the witness told The Post.
He expressed deep guilt over not calling police himself, explaining he feared jeopardizing his parole. Instead, he watched as people walked past the fallen teen for roughly half an hour before authorities arrived.
“The boy was lying there for about a half hour before the cops came,” he said. “People were just walking by him. Then a lady came out [of the nearby homeless shelter] and she called 911. She was frantic.”
The witness added a grim assessment of the neighborhood’s cycles of violence: “It’s like back in the day. Nothing ever changes. They’re still shooting each other.”
No arrests had been made as of Friday, and the motive for the killing remained under investigation by the NYPD.