A man with a knife shot behind a Harlem NYPD precinct stationhouse died on his 25th birthday, the victim’s grieving mother told the Daily News.
Jordon Naseem Gadson was smoking outside a deli around the corner from his home waiting for a sandwich when he was approached by two men passing the 28th Precinct stationhouse around 11:40 p.m. Sunday.
Surveillance video from the deli showed Gadson moving aggressively toward one of the men before heading in the opposite direction on Frederick Douglass Blvd. near W. 123rd St., cops say. That’s when one of the men pulled out a gun and shot Gadson in the head, according to cops.
“He died on his birthday,” said the victim’s mother, Sheila Davis-Dotson, 55. “Isn’t that something?”
Davis-Dotson, who is a property manager, said she spoke with witnesses near the scene who recalled her son telling the two men: “You don’t want any problems with me. You have to keep moving.”
“He got into a conversation with them. They had words,” she said. No arrest have been made.
Gadson carried a small knife for protection and used it when he tried to fend off his attackers, his mother said.
Medics rushed Gadson to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital but he could not be saved.
Gadson suffered from PTSD and was a loner who used music as a form of “therapy” as he rapped under the name JNaseem, his mother said.
“He suffered from PTSD. A lot of guys tried to beat on him,” Davis-Dotson said. “They tried to initiate him in a gang. We lived in the Jefferson Houses on the East Side. He couldn’t go anywhere. So many times he broke down. That’s why we moved over here from the East Side.”
“I’m taking him home to Orangeburg, South Carolina, where he was born to bury him,” she added. “We came here when he was 10 years old and he hated it. We stayed because we had to.”
Police said ballistic evidence was recovered at the scene.
“I would never expect for my child to die on his birthday,” Davis-Dotson said, fighting back tears. “They had the audacity to shoot my son outside the precinct. They don’t think police have cameras.”
Harlem’s 25th Precinct has seen two homicides this year through Sunday, NYPD stats show, the same number as during the same time frame last year. Citywide, murders are down 26%, with 104 slayings so far this year compared to 140 by this time last year.
