Bronx father grieves son, 21, slain in gun homicide — ‘All I am asking is that justice is served’

His son was asleep when Momodou Bayo left for work — and he was dead by the end of the day.

Bayo got a call Thursday about 4:30 p.m. that his beloved son Sydi, just 21, had been shot. He rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he encountered detectives from the 46th Precinct.

“When I left home for work, he was sleeping,” the elder Bayo, 56, told the Daily News on Friday. (At the hospital), the detectives told me there was bad news, that he was shot, and worse news, that he didn’t make it.

“This is how I learned that this lunatic killed my son.”

Sydi Bayo was at a friend’s apartment on Valentine Ave. near E. Burnside Ave. in Mount Hope about 4 p.m. Thursday when he was shot in the chest, police said. It was still not clear Friday what led up to the shooting.

“He went to the friend’s house,” said Sydi’s mom, Saiyey Kuyatah. “[The friend] called them to come and visit him.”

On Friday morning, police said, they arrested the friend — Cheick Diarra, also 21 — and charged him with murder, manslaughter and illegal weapons possession.

“The father of the perpetrator said he was sleeping and didn’t hear the shot,” said Momodou Bayo, a paralegal.

“He (Diarra’s father) then heard someone yelling that my son fell on the floor. He tried to help him to breathe. And the ambulance came and took him out.”

The grieving dad said his son worked as a delivery person for Uber Eats. Sydi was the oldest of six children. The family hails from the West African nation of Gambia.

“I’m feeling so horrible, so traumatized. I could not sleep all night,” the grieving father said. “He is my best friend. He is very nice. Really down to earth. And he’s a very good Muslim.”

“All I am asking is that justice is served.”