Ghanaian teenager chased and shot to death on his way to school in New York | new York

A Ghanaian teenager was chased and fatally shot Thursday morning while walking to school in the Bronx.

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) received a report Thursday morning of a shooting near Corona Park in the Bronx, a police spokesperson said Friday. Around 9:24 a.m., responding officers found Javits Frimpong, 15, suffering from a gunshot wound to the stomach.

Javits was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police have made no arrests and an investigation is ongoing as authorities search for three teenagers in connection with the shooting.

Surveillance footage allegedly showed Javits running, as a person dressed in black followed him. Another angle of video footage appeared to show masked individuals dressed in dark clothing fleeing the scene of the shooting.

The deadly attack shook the Claremont neighborhood of the Bronx and the city’s West African community.

“I lost him,” the teen’s father, Thomas Frimpong, told reporters Thursday. “I don’t know what to do now.”

The fatal shooting came as Javits marked one year in New York after arriving from Ghana, Frimpong said. Frimpong described his son as “intelligent” and “calm”. Javits was a victim of bullying at DreamYard Preparatory School, according to Frimpong.

Frimpong said the high school principal, who could not be reached for comment by phone or email, informed him recently that two students had been suspended for harassing Javits, he said.

An NYPD spokesperson declined to say Friday whether reports of intimidation were related to the attack.

Ghana’s Foreign Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, condemned the attack in a statement released Friday. “We will seek justice and ensure that those who committed these acts do not get away with impunity. »

“Just a year ago, Javits arrived in the United States from Ghana to reunite with his father and begin a new chapter in his life. Like so many Ghanaian immigrant families, his family came together in America with the hope of better opportunities, safety and a bright future,” the Ghanaian Diaspora Public Affairs Collective, a U.S.-based nonprofit, also said Friday.

“That future has now been violently suppressed. »