He ran in past the plantains, took a hard left by the cash machine, crashed into a rack of potato chips and helplessly waited to die.
The end for Cleveland Smith came in the aisle of a Bronx bodega. Most come into the shop seeking a sandwich or some cigarettes. Smith came in seeking refuge and protection, a gunman hot on his tail. And the corner store that seemingly has everything was fresh out.
Shocking and disturbing video shows the moment Smith, 35, was shot and killed on Sunday in a Mount Hope grocery store after a desperate bid to escape his attackers.
The victim was standing on E. 175th St. near the Grand Concourse in Mount Hope when two men spotted him around 5:10 p.m. police said.
The duo chased Smith into a nearby bodega and opened fire, shooting him in the torso, they added. No arrests have been made.
Medics rushed Smith to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he was pronounced dead..
Smith was killed just steps from his home.
Surveillance video from inside the popular Felomar bodega show a desperate Smith sprinting into the store past a row of fruit and vegetables before turning past an ATM and disappearing off camera.
Seconds later, a man appears with a gun and follows the same path. Both men reappear on camera with the gunman grabbing Smith by the collar. As Smith tries to push him away, a third man appears in the frame just before the gunman raises his weapons and fires two shots at the victim.
Smith disappears from the screen again as a shell casing bounces off the bodega floor.
A second video shows the chaotic aftermath of cops tending to the wounded Smith.
Not seen on camera were the terrified bodega clerks who hid behind the counter and in the cold box refrigerator to avoid being victims themselves.
Advocates of bodega workers said Smith’s death dramatically highlights the dangers store clerks face in the wake of increasing neighborhood violence.
“This was a hit, a targeted killing, and like many victims Smith ran into one of our bodegas trying to save his life,” said Radahmes Rodriguez, president of United Bodegas of America. “The UBA has long asked the city and state governments to help with creating Safe Haven Bodegas, a program that can protect victims like Junior Guzman who also ran into a Bodega seeking shelter,”
Rodgriguez was making reference to the 2018 death of Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz, a 15-year-old boy who ran into a different Bronx bodega to flee a gang of attackers who beat him to death in the store.
Junior was dragged outside and slashed and stabbed with a machete after police say the group of gang members mistook him for a rival. The teen, who had hopes of becoming an NYPD detective, tried to run to St. Barnabas Hospital a block away, but collapsed on the sidewalk.
In January, the last six of the 13 Trinitarios gang members convicted in the brutal, caught-on-camera knife-and-machete slaying were sentenced to prison in Bronx Supreme Court on first-degree manslaughter charges.
“We must do something to stop these killings,” said Fernando Mateo, a bodega association spokesman.
Leonard Greene
Source link