{"id":229640,"date":"2026-05-13T05:45:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T05:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/229640\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T05:45:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T05:45:10","slug":"news-12-brooklyn-they-took-my-son-from-me-community-mourns-18-year-old-mentor-killed-in-community-he-served","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/229640\/","title":{"rendered":"News 12 | Brooklyn | They Took My Son From Me Community Mourns 18 Year Old Mentor Killed In Community He Served"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">Loved ones came together to release balloons in honor of 18-year-old mentor, who was shot and killed on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">Quahmir Cruz worked two jobs, including mentoring kids in Brownsville. Ralitsa Vos, program director of the Van Dyke Community Center, says Cruz was on a bright path.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">\u201cHe knew there were a bunch of stereotypes and stigmas about the area he was in and he didn&#8217;t want to fall under that. He didn&#8217;t want to be categorized with that,&#8221; said Vos.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">Vos also says he took part in shooting response efforts. Until he became the victim of one.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">Investigators say the shooting happened in the vicinity of 375 Blake Ave.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">Cruz was taken to the hospital and later died.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">The location of the shooting is just steps away from where Cruz lived and served at the community center. It happened just after 3 p.m. on Mother&#8217;s Day.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">\u201cThey took my son from me. That\u2019s something that I will never, ever be able to get back. I love my son, Quahmir Cruz. I love you,&#8221; said Cruz&#8217;s mother, Danielle Cruz.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">Police say no arrests have been made as of Tuesday evening. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Loved ones came together to release balloons in honor of 18-year-old mentor, who was shot and killed on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-229640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229640","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=229640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}