Father of slain Brooklyn baby says son’s killer should ‘rot in hell’ at vigil
The father of Davell Gardner, the 1-year-old boy fatally shot outside a Brooklyn park this week, said at a Tuesday night vigil that his son’s killer deserves “to rot in hell.”
“You took my son’s life away,” Davell Gardner Sr. said at Raymond Bush Playground, where his baby was fatally shot Sunday night after at least three suspects opened fire on a crowd gathered for a cookout.
“You took a part of me away also — and now I have to put my son in the ground and never get to see him again,” the father said through tears.
As of Tuesday night, no arrests had been made in the shooting that also left three men wounded.
Police have said the suspects pulled up in an SUV and started firing after exiting the vehicle.
Davell Gardner “didn’t do nothing to nobody,” his father said Tuesday night.
“He was pure, and you took that life away. And you deserve to rot in hell,” the father said.
The child’s grandmother added of the boy, “Last time I seen him, his eyes were closed laying dead in an operating room.
“What grandmother, what mother, what father, would want to see their child laying there dead?”
Shortly after the 5 p.m. vigil began, the tot’s great-grandad, 82-year-old Samuel Gardner, was hospitalized after fainting at the event.
Two NYPD community-affairs officers, Shalisa Bland and Wanda Crooks, rushed to Samuel’s aid and took turns performing chest compressions until Garden came to, witnesses said.
“He fainted, he collapsed. He didn’t have a pulse, he came back then was taken to Brooklyn Hospital,” Bland told The Post.
“It was chaos, a lot of screaming and crying. Everybody was overwhelmed. To lose a little kid then turn around and see the grandfather collapse.”