The Queens teen fatally shot by a gunman on a Citi Bike in SoHo was described Wednesday as a helpful child who traveled each day from his Brooklyn home to his lower Manhattan charter school so he could have a better future.
It was 16-year-old Mahki Brown’s innate desire to help that led to him being shot in the courtyard of the luxury Dominick Hotel on Spring St. near Varick St. Tuesday afternoon, his family believes. Cops say he was intervening in a fight between two groups of girls when he was killed.
“If he sees situations that’s not the right thing, he’ll intervene and try to break fights up,” said the teen’s basketball coach Jessica Jenkins, 32. “His heart is going to help out.”
Jenkins, 48, was among a group of neighbors who tried their best to console Mahki’s mother at her East Flatbush apartment Wednesday morning.
“He was always trying to help somebody,” said family friend LaKesha Jenkins, who had known Mahki since he was just 4. “He wasn’t a bad kid. He wasn’t disrespectful.”
The teen’s mother was too grief-stricken to talk to reporters. Mahki was her only child, friends said.
Mahki had just left Broome Street Academy Charter High School and was hanging out with his friends at the nearby courtyard when he intervened in the clash between two groups of girls about 2:30 p.m., police said.
Another teen stepped in to defend a girl in the opposing group, pulled a gun and fired several shots, hitting Mahki once in the head and twice in the thigh, according to cops.
“He had a bullet in his head and his leg,” a man who saw the shooting told the Daily News Tuesday. “He was unconscious and not moving. They put him on a stretcher and did CPR.”
Medics rushed the wounded teen to Bellevue Hospital, where he died.
The gunman and an accomplice took off on one Citi Bike and are still on the loose.
The victim’s shaken girlfriend shed tears at a memorial set up outside the teen’s apartment building Wednesday, saying she was with Mahki when he was killed.
“I just keep seeing him on the floor,” said the girl, who did not share her name.
LaKesha Jenkins said Mahki first went to high school in Queens, but his mother moved him to the lower Manhattan charter school his sophomore year.
“He needed change,” said the family friend. “He couldn’t be here in this area because it was this area that strayed him.”
After his mother switched him to the new school “the change came,” LaKesha Jenkins said, making the hourlong commute each way worth it.
“You [saw] the growth,” she recalled. “He wanted better because he saw what his mom was doing for him. She was leading him to his future.”
News of Mahki’s death hit everyone in his apartment building “hard as a unit,” LaKesha Jenkins said.
“We watched him grow up. He loved basketball,” she said. “His only problem is that he was always trying to help everybody. We have those people who have that type of heart.”
Mahki played basketball with Brooklyn youth groups, his coach said as she fought back tears.
“He played since he was very little,” said Jessica Jenkins. “Mahki was his own favorite basketball player. He was passionate about the game. Sometimes you can see him frustrated in games. I’d calm him down.”
Both teens and adults throughout the sprawling complex were in shock.
“I was crying this morning, I couldn’t believe it,” said Ramel Williams, 45, another friend of the family.
“I known him since he was 6, 7 years old,” Williams said. “It hit me hard. It’s disappointing. My heart is sad.”
“You can say I seen him as a bit of a son to me,” added Williams.
LaKesha Jenkins suspects the gunman is also a young boy.
“It was probably a child who did it,” she said. “The sad part about it is the person that did it, their parents don’t even know what they’re out here doing.”
As cops collect surveillance footage that could help them track the gunman’s movements, Mahki’s family and friends are hoping for a quick arrest.
“Who commanded [the gunman] to be God, to take someone’s life?” LaKesha Jenkins asked. “We are going to pray, and we are hoping whoever did this gets caught.”
With Rocco Parascandola
