RONALD WALLACE III - 13 yo - (2012) / Charged: Akbar Johns, 17 - Brooklyn, NY

Brownsville Brooklyn boy, 13, shot in back and killed in street shooting
 

Ronald Wallace was standing with others at the corner of Tapscott and Blake in Brownsville when an unknown gunman opened fire about 12:45 a.m., cops and witnesses said.

Friday, August 24, 2012, 10:01 AM


Debbie Egan-Chin/New York Daily News
Jackie Thornton cries for her grandson Ronald Wallace,13, who was shot dead last night in a crime-ridden Brooklyn neighborhood. He was a star basketball player at his middle school PS 323. 48 Grafton street. 8/24/12

The grandmother of a 13-year-old Brooklyn teen who died Friday after being shot in the back broke down in tears when she learned of his death.

“Now my baby’s gone, he’s gone,” Jackie Thorton wailed. “I can’t believe it, it’s so hard. Thirteen years old, my baby’s gone. He didn’t even get half of his life.”

Ronald Wallace was the latest person to be cut down by senseless gunfire in Brownsville when a gunman opened fire about 12:45 a.m. while he was hanging out with friends at Tapscott and Blake Aves., cops and witnesses said.

Courtesy Wallace Family
 Ronald Wallace III, 13, (left) with his father Ronald Wallace Jr.
Wallace — who lived just a block away — tried to run, but he was felled by a bullet that tore through his back, police said.

Danny Iudici/for New York Daily News
Police investigate the scene where a 13-year-old boy was shot in the back. The victim was removed in critical condition to Brookdale Hospital where he was later pronounced dead. No arrests have been made.

A team of EMTs rushed the wounded teen to Brookdale University Hospital, but he could not be saved.

“He was a wonderful kid, he didn’t bother nobody,” said Thorton, 52. “He was very smart. He was a lovable kid. He was funny.”
“It’s so much to take right now, it’s hard to talk,” added his grieving father, Ronald Wallace Sr. “He was an energetic kid.”

Wallace, an avid basketball player, was preparing for his freshman year at Richmond Hill High School in Queens. The school recruited the teen to play hoops, relatives said.

Debbie Egan-Chin/New York Daily News
Jackie Thornton cries, remembered her grandson as a star basketball player at his middle school PS 323. 48 Grafton street. 8/24/12

It was not immediately clear if Wallace was the intended target. Cops were still hunting for the shooter hours later.

Locals say the corner, an area of benches known as Howard Malls, has become a hot spot for drugs.

Venus Liverman, 41, said her oldest son warned her recently to not let his younger brothers hang out in the little park.

“My son is 22, and he told me, ‘Don’t let them go over there anymore,’” she said. “He said, ‘Ma, don’t let them go outside and sit in the square no more.’”

 
Ronald Wallace (3rd from l.) with his basketball teammates.
The shooting comes just days after four teens were shot in a crowded Fish Playground on Fulton St.
A 15-year-old boy was later charged with the Aug. 13 shootings, which stemmed from an argument he had with another teen.
Brownsville sits in the police precinct with more shooting victims this year than anywhere else in the city.
Wallace was the 70th person shot in the 73rd Precinct this year and overall crime there is up 5 percent, officials said.

 
Ronald Wallace, shot in the back, is the 70th person shot in the 73rd precinct this year.
Residents have been complaining for months about being held hostage by the violence in their streets.
They say anti-violence programs that targeted Brownsville for two years — like the “Back on Track” classes aimed at middle-schoolers like Wallace — are clearly not working.

Danny Iudici/for New York Daily News
The incident occurred in Brooklyn at Tapscott and Blake avenues in Brownsville. Crime is up 5 percent in the 73rd precinct this year.

They say their youngsters are still being lured into street gangs despite efforts by the district attorney’s office to offer them safe alternatives like a boxing gym.

Teen Arrested In Fatal Brooklyn Shooting


September 8, 2012 3:48 PM




Credit NYPD
Akbar Johns, Brooklyn Arrested, shooting


NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) - A teenager has been arrested in a shooting that killed another teen — four years younger — on a street in Brooklyn.


The New York Police Department says 17-year-old Akbar Johns was arrested Friday on murder and other charges. It isn’t clear whether he has a lawyer, and no telephone number for him can be found.

The victim, Ronald Wallace, was 13. He was shot in the back on Aug. 24 at Tapscott Street and Blake Avenue, in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn.

His death came only about a month after a 4-year-old boy was killed on a Bronx playground and a 14-year-old was shot dead in the Bronx after playing tennis.

Earlier this month, a 2-month-old boy in a stroller was grazed by a bullet in the Bronx.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/09/08/teen-arrested-in-fatal-brooklyn-shooting/

Devastated Brooklyn mom sues after seeing slain teen son's funeral in an online video



Tiffany Orr of Brownsville said she was 'really upset' after seeing video of her 13-year-old son Ronald Wallace Jr., posted on the truelifevids.com website

Thursday, October 17, 2013, 10:00 PM

The devastated mother of a 13-year-old Brownsville boy who was shot and killed last year filed a lawsuit after she discovered a video posted online of the teen’s funeral without her permission.

After scraping up enough money to give son Ronald Wallace Jr. a proper funeral last September, Tiffany Orr was forced to relive the horrible event a month later, after her other son found the video on a website called “truelifevids.com,” she said.
The tape was posted by Robeson & Brown Funeral Home as an advertising ploy, court papers filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court charge.

“It just brought back memories,” Orr told the Daily News on Thursday. “Just seeing him in a casket — that was just too much. I’m really upset.”

Orr’s son was killed with a single shot to the back when he was hanging out with friends in August 2012.

Police arrested Akbar Johns, 17, and charged him with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.

A man who answered at the funeral home hung up on a reporter.


http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/mom-sues-teen-funeral-online-article-1.1489229#ixzz2mlwViGDE