Hardworking Brooklyn dad fatally shot in robbery outside gas station less than two blocks from home
Grainy security video shows the moment a hardworking Ecuadoran immigrant was shot dead during what police described as a robbery turned deadly outside a Brooklyn gas station.
Javier Sanchez, 33, lived less than two blocks away from where he was murdered and was on his way home when police say he was surrounded by a group of men who shot him in the head.
“He was coming home,” said Sanchez’s cousin Paul Euza, 25. “He went to a party and dance and hang out.”
Video shows at least three men confronting Sanchez in the parking lot of the BP service station on Myrtle Ave. by Irving Ave. in Bushwick.
They struggle and at one point, Sanchez is knocked to the ground by a parked car. He gets up, heads toward the men and drops to the pavement a second time, motionless.
Footage from inside the gas station convenience store appears to show one of the men in the group grab a case of Modelo beer before meeting with a friend inside. They go to pay for their booze, and just two minutes before the confrontation, one of the men appears to urinate right outside the station.
It’s not clear from the video what role, if any, either man played in Sanchez’s shooting.
“Lots of robberies here. They’re men from the neighborhood so they just drink around the area,” said Waquir Mazhar, who manages the BP gas station. “That’s why we had to install bulletproof glass. I think it was last year after we got robbed.
“You’re just going about your business and you don’t know you’re not gonna have a next day.”
Police data show nine robberies within a one-block radius of the gas station during the first eight months of this year, including one stickup of the service station March 8.
Overall robberies are up by nearly 8% in the 83rd Precinct, with 223 as of Aug. 27 compared with 207 in the corresponding time period last year.
Neighbors have described the corner as a magnet for drinking and fights after the sun goes down.
Sanchez came to the U.S. 13 months ago from Ambato, Ecuador, where his 4-year-old daughter and her mother still live, according to his cousin Euza.
The little girl still doesn’t know what happened to her dad, said Euza.
“She’s too young. She’s only 4,” he said, adding that his family’s grief is compounded by their living a continent away. “There aren’t words for our sadness. It’s very, extremely sad.”
Euza described Sanchez as “a very joyful person” and a devoted father and friend.
Erika Carillo, 27, who rents a room in the same apartment as Sanchez did, said the victim sent money back to his family so they could care for his child.
“It’s devastating for his daughter. He was very kind and attentive with my kids. He played with them often.” said Carillo, a fellow Ecuadoran immigrant and a mother of two. “I’m shocked. So surprised. This whole area is very unsafe. It’s hard to relax when it happened on the street outside.”
She added, “He was happy, hardworking, calm. He lived here with his cousins who came to New York before he did.”
Cops were looking for four men who fled the scene early Sunday. As of Monday afternoon, police had made no arrests.
