Bronx fender bender leads to murder following Puerto Rican Day Parade

A celebration of Puerto Rican pride ended in bloodshed when a dispute over a fender bender devolved into a deadly shooting in the Bronx, according to cops and witnesses.

Jeremy Cancel, 34, was fatally shot after a fight stemming from the accident, they said Monday.

Cancel had been hanging out with members of the Team Silencio competitive car club at the Puerto Rican Day Parade in Harlem before their convoy of tricked-out cars drove to a quiet, industrial stretch of West Farms Road near E. 174th St., witnesses said.

As Cancel blasted music from the huge speakers in his heavily modified Honda CRV around 9:15 p.m. Sunday, a pair of men emerged from a black Accura and attacked the club’s president, who had been involved in a car accident with one of the attackers on the Hutchinson River Parkway earlier that day, according to members of the car club.

As Cancel and fellow club members rushed to break up the fight, one of their ambushers unleashed a barrage of gunfire that tore through the crowd, according to a friend of Cancel’s.

“Everybody was just hanging out,” a witness who gave her name as Cassandra told the Daily News. “We heard the shots and I was in shock.

“Everything happened so fast,” she added. “He came out of the car to fight.”

Along with Cancel, bullets struck two other men, who were all rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital, according to police. Cancel died there Sunday night.

As members of Cancel’s car club swarmed the hospital, police had to mobilize for crowd control, cops said.

Team Silencio’s first run-in with the attackers occurred when the gunman’s friend smashed his white Infiniti into the club president’s custom ride on the Hutchinson River Parkway Sunday afternoon, according to a friend of Cancel’s.

The two then argued over insurance before a brawl erupted on the shoulder of the highway, which ended when the Infiniti driver sped off in his busted two-door coupe, the friend said.

“They got into the first fight on the Hutchinson River Parkway,” said Los, who declined to give his last name.

Team Silencio, which seeks out-of-the-way spots on holidays like Puerto Rican Day to blast music and show off their cars, met on West Farm Road after the crash, where the Infiniti driver and the gunman would later find them, according to witnesses.

“The gentleman who hit my friend came back and started fighting my friend again,” said Los.

Friends of Cancel, a Yonkers resident of Puerto Rican descent, recognized the Infiniti driver as the member of another car club who was familiar with many of Team Silencio’s preferred hangout spots.

“We all know his face and everything,” said Cassandra.

Cancel — who made a living installing custom sound systems into cars, which were often displayed at competitive car shows throughout the city — was remembered as a kind-hearted friend, loving husband, and the proud father of a daughter and a newborn son.

“You’ll never find another person like him. If you needed help, he’d be there for you,” said 36-year-old Louis Ortiz. “It’s depressing. Every crazy person’s got a gun. You’re not safe nowhere.”

Cancel’s wife was devastated to learn of her husband’s murder and lamented how the gunman had robbed his children of their father.

“[His daughter] said she misses her daddy,” said the grieving spouse, who declined to give her name. “She keeps crying for him.”

No arrests have been made in the shooting, and the investigation is ongoing, cops said.