A devastated Bronx father said he’s been living a waking nightmare since his 16-year-old son was killed in a triple shooting on Wednesday.
“We’re torn apart. I wish he was still here. I wish he was still alive,” Bryan Corley said of his teenage son Christopher Redding. “This all seems like a bad dream.”
Redding was shot in the back outside the Bronx Alehouse on W. 238th St. near Putnam Ave. in Kingsbridge shortly after 5 p.m. Wednesday. Two other victims, a 15-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl, were both struck in their right legs.
The three wounded teens were rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital, where Redding died. The other victims are expected to survive.
Cops now say the bloodshed was gang motivated, despite Redding having no criminal record. Corley insisted his son was an innocent bystander.
“My boy was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. “It’s a real tragedy. Everybody’s world has been ripped apart.
“He was coming home from school,” the father said. “He was only in the ninth grade.”
“He was a good kid. No, a great kid. He was loved by everybody,” the victim’s uncle, 55-year-old Travis Wingate, previously said. “It’s still not really registering. Why would they start blazing at three kids who were only walking up the block? We’re just hoping for justice.”
Kerry Burke / New York Daily News
Three people were shot, one fatally, on W. 238th St. near Putnam Ave. in the Bronx on Wednesday. (Kerry Burke / New York Daily News)
Redding attended Kennedy High School where he was a star player on the varsity football team.
“Christopher was an exceptional athlete,” Corley said. “He was a running back for Kennedy High School and a whole lot of other teams.”
Heartfelt tributes from fellow players, coaches and parents flooded social media in the wake of Redding’s death.
“He was a young man who let his power speak for itself every time he stepped out onto that field,” the NYC Youth Football League wrote in a post to Facebook. “His presence, his strength and his light will never be forgotten. A young life taken far too soon. May you rest peacefully CJ.”
A woman who wrote that Redding was a teammate of her son’s, described him as a “tremendously talented athlete and loved by all of the other players.”
“It is such a terrible and senseless loss,” Robin Joy continued in a comment on Facebook.
Redding leaves behind two older sisters, a younger sister and a younger brother, his father said.
Kerry Burke / New York Daily News
Police investigate the fatal shooting on W. 238th St. in the Bronx on Wednesday. (Kerry Burke / New York Daily News)
Congressman Ritchie Torres, who serves the 15th District in the Bronx, wrote in a Facebook post that he was “heartbroken,” by the deadly shooting.
“The Bronx must be a place where kids feel safe walking home, not a place where violence cuts lives short,” Torres wrote. “I urge anyone with information to come forward to law enforcement so there can be accountability and justice.
In a parent advisory council meeting on Thursday city Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said, “We send our prayers and condolences to that family and that school community.”
Samuels added that, following the shooting, his team extended help to Redding’s high school.
“We have already been in touch with the school and have a presence there,” he said.
Investigators initially suspected the deadly triple shooting stemmed from an argument inside a McDonald’s on Broadway near the scene, where a worker described a dispute over spilt ice cream that led an adult woman and three men to attack a teenage girl inside the fast-food place earlier Wednesday.
NYPD
Cops are searching for four suspects, three men and a woman, wanted in connection with the fatal triple shooting that claimed the life of 16-year-old Christopher Redding in the Bronx. (NYPD)
Detectives on Thursday released surveillance photos of three men and a woman they have zeroed in on as suspects in the shooting.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
With Cayla Bamberger