Four gunman, two of them teens, have been arrested for murder for the wild Bronx park mass shooting that left one man dead and four victims wounded, including an innocent 17-year-old girl visiting her old neighborhood, police said Monday.
More than 40 shots were fired — and six guns later recovered — in the Saturday evening shootout at Haffen Park in Baychester.
The gun battle sparked off about 7:25 p.m. as a back-to-school community giveback basketball tournament was unfolding in the park. It’s still not clear who was firing at whom — or why.
Daeven Reyes, 20, and Robert Royal, 25, were taken into custody at the scene along with a 16-year-old boy and 17-year-old boy. All four were later charged with murder, attempted murder and gun possession, police said.
The suspects were awaiting arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court Monday. The ages of the two younger victims were not publicly released because they are juveniles.
Jaceil Blanks, 32, was fatally shot in the chest near Burke and Wickman Aves.
The innocent teen, Anthonaya Campbell, was shot in the back of the head. The bullet remains lodged behind her eye and she is in critical condition at Jacobi Medical Center, where Blanks died.
Anthonaya was watching a basketball tournament in the park, across the street from her family’s old apartment
Hours before, Anthonaya’s mother, Jennifer Talbot, was awarded her Ph.D. in psychology at a graduation ceremony at Heart Bible International University in Connecticut, where mother and daughter moved five years ago.
“My day of celebration became my day of my worst nightmare really quickly,” Talbot Sunday after rushing to her daughter’s hospital bed.
A 30-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman, both shot in the back, made it to Jacobi Medical Center by private means and are in stable condition. A 42-year-old man went to Montefiore Hospital by private means and is expected to recover.
One resident of a house close to the park said their family and friends were having a function in their front yard when shots rang out.
“They start shooting at each other. I’m like, ‘Everybody get inside,’” said the resident, who did not want to disclose their name.
“It was crazy,” they added. “We had a function yesterday and I was like, ‘Nobody gonna come back next year.”
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