Teen who shunned gang shot dead

[BTS]

Teen who shunned

gang shot dead



Bronx gridder lured from home



This story was reported by

VERONIKA BELENKAYA, KERRY BURKE, LORETTA CHAO,

ROBERT F. MOORE and OREN YANIV

It was written by PAUL H.B. SHIN and JONATHAN LEMIRE





A star athlete at a Bronx high school was lured out of his house and gunned down Friday night after years of refusing to join a gang of local thugs, his heartbroken friends and cops said yesterday.

Fernando Corea, 16, captain of the powerhouse football team at Alfred E. Smith High School, was shot three times just steps from his Throgs Neck home.

A close friend who lives on the same block dashed into the street after hearing the rapid-fire shots and saw Fernando splayed on a neighbor's driveway, clinging to life.

"I called out his name. He turned and tried to get up, then gently put his head back on the [ground]," said Alberto Diaz, 45.

"I knew then that he was gone," said Diaz, the stepfather of Fernando's best friend.

Diaz said his stepson, Steven Jiminez, witnessed the 11 p.m. shooting. "They took him from me! They took him from me!" the distraught young man cried.

The alleged gunman, Francis Quindel, 16, who neighbors said was a member of the Bloods gang, was arrested yesterday and charged with murder and weapons possession, police said.

Investigators found eight shell casings from a 9-mm. semiautomatic handgun scattered near Fernando's body.

The brutal slaying came just three days before Fernando's 17th birthday and less than a week after he had met his football idol, Jets coach Herman Edwards, who visited the boy's school Wednesday and told him he had a future as a pro.

Edwards had handed the chubby-cheeked teen a Jets helmet and a handwritten note: "You play to win."

"He impressed me with his warm personality and his passion for football," Edwards said last night. "Fernando represented everything good about being a student-athlete."

Outside the family's house on Brinsmade Ave., Fernando's devastated mother, Evelyn, wailed with grief.

"Fernandito! Why him?" she screamed, almost collapsing.

Loved ones described Fernando as a cheerful young man with bright prospects who was quick to help neighbors.

"This is the kind of kid when you pulled up with groceries in your car, before you can ask, the door would open and he's taking them out of your car, helping you carry them," Diaz sobbed.

But hoodlums from the nearby Throgs Neck Houses had been hassling Fernando to join their gang since he was in eighth grade, friends said.

Fernando - who stood more than 6 feet tall and weighed more than 200 pounds - wanted nothing to do with their thug lifestyle, instead dreaming of going to college and playing pro ball. His refusals to join the gang infuriated the hoodlums, who had repeatedly attacked him in recent years, friends said.

"Whenever I asked Fernandito about this, he would tell me, 'I guess they're just jealous,'" Diaz said.

Neighbors said that Quindel was prone to sudden acts of violence and that he had several recent run-ins with Fernando.

"He's [Quindel] not all there. He punches his mother on the street in broad daylight," said one neighbor who said he was too scared to give his name. "He'll fight anybody - he should be in an institution."

Quindel told investigators that Fernando instigated yesterday's fight by wildly swinging a metal pipe at him, a law enforcement source said.

Investigators recovered a bloody pipe at the scene, but no witnesses have backed up Quindel's story, the source said.

"They would never fight him one-on-one, always three to four people," Diaz said. "I guess that's why they shot him. They couldn't fight him man to man - the only way they could beat him is if they shot him."

Originally published on February 12, 2005

This is old news I know, but thought this fine young man could stand a look see here.

So sad.

BTS

[LoveMama]

He said that in a lot of movies...

He was hero in the 40's.............

then sweet Jane Wyman, his wife lost him to you know who.........who was out to find a guy with money.............and she was good at doing it. Nancy God Bless her.........was a tough lady and she won!

xxxxxxxxxoooooooo

mama