NEW YORK — New York Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell on Monday met the Brooklyn family still reeling from a senseless drive-by shooting that killed an innocent 12-year-old boy and badly wounded his 20-year-old cousin.
“Whose child is next?” Adams said afterward, repeating the question the family asked him moments earlier. “And when you understand the realness of this, you understand the urgency. So when I move with the urgency, and people are telling me to slow down, what the hell is wrong with you? Whose child is next? And the overwhelming number of the victims are Black and brown.”
Adams held up Air Jordans worn by Kade Lewin, who was shot to death in East Flatbush Thursday night in a hail of 11 bullets meant for someone else.
“These could have been Jordan’s sneakers, my son,” Adams said.
Kaden and his niece, Kylie Thompson, 8, were out with Kaden’s cousin, Jenna Ellis, 20. They stopped at a Boston Market, picked up dinner and headed home in the family’s Toyota Corolla. But before they got there, Ellis pulled over at E. 56th Street and Linden Boulevard.
Moments later, a dark sedan came down the block and a shooter inside opened fire, apparently confusing the car with a similar one belonging to the intended target.
Kaden, shot in the head and chest, was killed. Ellis, the boy’s “favorite cousin,” was shot in the cheek, torso and upper leg but survived. Kylie, who was watching a movie on her phone as she ate in the back seat, escaped unhurt.
There have been no arrests.
“This story just strikes at the heart of the trauma in our city and in our country,” Adams said. “This amazing young girl (Ellis) was just taking care of her young family members, treating them to food. Just having them out, enjoying the day, the night. Pulled over just to watch a movie, and to eat the food.
“In that instant, lost him.”
The meeting took place Monday morning at the family’s home not far from the shooting. The relatives included the mothers of both shooting victims.
“I’m so sorry,” Adams told them. “Words cannot take away what you are going through. But you’re representative of the best that this city and country have to offer. And your children represented that. And those who took their lives will be found. The police commissioner and I, we’re committed to finding them.”
“It’s time this entire city stand with families like these,” Adams added. “Because there’s only one question we have to answer if we don’t get this right: whose child is next?”
———
