A 23-year-old man shot in the first-floor hallway of a Brooklyn apartment building was an aspiring artist from Baltimore who came to New York to pursue his dreams, his family says.
Kyle Smith was shot multiple times near the lobby of a building he was visiting on Herkimer St. near Nostrand Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant about 6:15 p.m. Friday. No arrests have been made.
“He’s an artist,” the victim’s mother, Charmaine Little, told the Daily News in a phone conversation from Maryland. “He made music. He drew. He did a lot of art. He had a clothing designer line.”
The victim relocated to New York in 2021 to pursue his creativity, moving in with an aunt.
“I got the call around 8:30 that night,” Little said of the night her son was slain. “My sister called me because he was staying with my sister and she broke the news to me.”
Her sister told Little the victim had left the apartment they were sharing at 6 p.m. and didn’t plan to be out for long. Fifteen minutes later he was shot.
“My sister said he was on the phone with someone laughing before he went out,” the victim’s mother said. “He just started talking to a girl so we are not sure if she was connected to it.”
A resident of the building on Herkimer St. where Smith was slain said she heard four gunshots but no other commotion.
“Things have happened in this area but not in my hallway,” said the woman, who did not give her name. “This is crazy.”
Smith lived with his aunt a dozen blocks away from where he was murdered and the family doesn’t know what connection he had to the Herkimer St. building.
Medics rushed Smith to Kings County Hospital but he couldn’t be saved. He has no criminal history in New York City, NYPD officials said, and investigators have not been able to establish a motive.
“We really don’t know what happened, ” said Kyle Smith Sr., the victim’s father. “Right now we are just out of it.”
Smith showed an interest in art from the age of 2 and was a precocious talent.
“His elementary school teacher was impressed,” his mother said. “They told me that they never seen a child at his age be this detail oriented when drawing.”
In just second grade, Smith’s art teacher had him paint a mural on the wall of his elementary school tech lab, his family said.
Later Smith created a mascot he named Yohahn for Foodgitive, the restaurant and food truck his father owns, and used to manage the restaurant, a Baltimore staple.
“He was such a hard worker,” said Smith Sr.
Smith also showed athletic talent. He boxed, played basketball and devoted himself to football from the age of 5 until the end of high school.
His niece and nephew, who he helped raise, called him “Gruncle”, a combination of grandpa and uncle.
“I’m still in shock and still processing things,” his mother said. “I’m just existing right now.”
With Thomas Tracy
Originally Published:
