Family of Brooklyn shooting victim suffered a long list of tragedies

Colin Mixson, Leonard Greene, New York Daily News
·3 min read
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The shooting death of a Queens man after an argument on a Brooklyn street was the latest in a long list of tragedies for the victim’s heartbroken family.

Cops said Antoine Ruffin was fatally shot after a quarrel with his killer outside a Bedford-Stuyvesant Family Dollar on Monday evening.

His anguished relatives said Ruffin had come from a birthday cookout in Far Rockaway to meet with a friend in Brooklyn when he was shot shortly after 7:30 p.m.

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” said the victim’s sister, Emani Hester, 23.” My brother had just left from his uncle’s house. He had just left from family. I don’t understand how or why or where. I don’t understand how he got involved in anything. It doesn’t make sense. For him to have gotten into an argument, how could that escalate so quickly that they pulled a gun and shot him?”

Hester said her brother was a hard-working family man who wasn’t involved in any kind of street beefs.

“My brother doesn’t have a gun,” she said. “I don’t know what type of narrative they’re trying to spin. He was no gang member, no street dude. He was a father of three, a great father, a family man. He was never involved in any problems with people. He was about his family, his kids.”

Police said Ruffin got into a disagreement with his killer outside Family Dollar on Franklin Ave. near Lafayette Ave. A gunman fired off at least four shots, striking the victim in the chest. Medics rushed him to Kings County Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

There have been no arrests.

Antoinette Ruffin, another sister, said her brother’s death hit the family hard.

In 2021, their mother died from lung cancer a year after their stepfather was killed in a motorcycle accident.

“We haven’t been able to recoup from that and now we got this,” Antoinette, 30, said.”It’s starting all over again, just a little worse.”

In 2020, Ruffin’s stepfather, Matthew Hester, 41, crashed his motorcycle into the back of an NYPD highway cruiser, sending him flying off the bike to his death. The police cruiser had stopped to help a disabled car near the Cross Bay Blvd. exit in Ozone Park.

Hester had just stopped by his mother’s Flushing home to bring her a bouquet of flowers for her birthday.

Antoinette said the string of tragedies dates back to 2003 when their baby brother, Matthew, died weeks after he was born from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

“He died in his sleep,” the sister said. “He was only alive for two months. Antoine was probably 7 years old. It hit him hard.”

Ruffin went on to have kids of his own, and had another baby on the way, she said.

“He’s a bright individual,” Antoinette said. “He’s a character in himself. He’s happy all the time. He does have a very outgoing and somewhat bold personality. For the most part at the end of the day he’s loved by everybody. Everybody cares about this kid. He means a lot to our family.”