{"id":203885,"date":"2026-04-20T21:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T21:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/203885\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T21:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T21:57:07","slug":"family-of-78-year-old-gunned-down-in-the-bronx-is-calling-on-nyc-officials-to-ratchet-up-the-investigations-intensity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/203885\/","title":{"rendered":"Family of 78-year-old gunned down in the Bronx is calling on NYC officials to ratchet up the investigation’s intensity"},"content":{"rendered":"

The investigation into the shooting death of Bronx grandfather Edgar Spence<\/a> is intensifying, with community advocates now offering a $5,000 reward in the case.<\/p>\n

The 78-year-old victim’s loved ones broke their silence Monday and called on the city to do more to find their beloved grandfather’s killer.<\/p>\n

“Somebody knows something”<\/p>\n

Family members gathered outside the Mitchell Houses in Mott Haven, just feet away from the bench Spence was sitting on when police say he was fatally struck by a stray bullet on Thursday night. They made it clear not enough is being done to provide answers.<\/p>\n

“Our father, our grandfather and our children’s great-grandfather didn’t deserve this,” said Michael Reid, Spence’s son.<\/p>\n

Adding to the family’s heartache, members say there is frustration over the lack of updates from detectives and silence from Mayor Zohran Mamdani on the loss of a man revered by locals as the neighborhood’s “Pops.”<\/p>\n

“I would like that same energy as if a police officer was standing here or if they were talking about a police officer having been shot,” Reid said.<\/p>\n

“Somebody knows something, but somebody is not saying anything,” community leader Rev. Kevin McCall said.<\/p>\n

McCall then announced the reward for information in the case that leads to an arrest and conviction.<\/p>\n

NYPD officials said the investigation is ongoing, while the mayor’s office did not immediately respond to CBS News New York’s request for comment.<\/p>\n

Homicides in NYC down more than 20% year over year, police say<\/p>\n

Despite the recent wave of widely-publicized violence<\/a>, police say homicides are actually down citywide. The latest numbers show murders are down by more than 22% from this time last year.<\/p>\n

And overall, the first quarter of 2026 saw a historic low in major crime across all five boroughs, the department said.<\/p>\n

For this Mott Haven community, however, stats can’t measure the weight of their grief.<\/p>\n

“Edgar was something of a fixture and a monument to Mitchell [Houses],” one woman said.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The investigation into the shooting death of Bronx grandfather Edgar Spence is intensifying, with community advocates now offering…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,787,3796,9,24,63,103,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-203885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-gun-violence","10":"tag-mott-haven","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-nypd","15":"tag-the-bronx","16":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","17":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}