Five teens killed by violence in five consecutive days

The stunning shooting deaths of five teenagers in just as many days has shaken a city that’s become far too familiar with gun violence, and families mourning their children’s unfulfilled promise and shattered dreams.

Tea’Arion Mungo loved to dance and sing and write and tell stories, but a gunman’s bullet ended all that.

“He wanted to work as an electrician,” his grandmother Elizabeth Mungo said.  “Last week Friday he had an interview for an internship.”

“It’s unbelievable. It’s heartbreaking,” said Tennille House, 48, after her neighbor, Clarence Jones, 16, died following an early-morning shooting Oct. 24 on a Harlem street corner.

“It’s just too much as a parent. Nobody ever wants to get that phone call. No parent should have to bury their child. Anytime your phone rings at 1, 2, 3 in the morning it’s never good news.”

That call came often after young Clarence died that Thursday, almost every day for nearly a week.

On Friday, a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed in Brooklyn. On Saturday, a 16-year-old Brooklyn boy suffered the same fate.

On Sunday, a 15-year-old boy was killed with a gun in Brooklyn. And on Monday, an 18-year-old Bronx boy was shot to death.

Five days, five deaths. On Tuesday there was almost a sigh of relief.

The violence that has gripped the city in recent months has left residents, community leaders, elected officials and cops scrambling for answers and solutions.

But little has been more troubling than a spate of shooting deaths when the only thing that spared young victims in the city were days called Tuesday and Wednesday.

The streak of out-of-control gun violence began on Thursday, when Clarence, a popular teen, was shot in the torso by a pair of gunmen on Razor scooters near W. 124th St. and Lenox Ave. about 1:30 a.m.

The boy was about nine blocks from home when he was shot, according to cops.

Desiree Murray, 59, who identified herself as a paternal aunt and is a tenant in the close-knit apartment Harlem building where Clarence lived with his father, spoke to the Daily News after Clarence’s death.

“We don’t know what happened. We don’t know about target,” Murray said. “We know somebody killed our nephew. They just took his life senselessly. He was only 16.”

Relatives could make no sense of Malachi Deberry’s death the very next day.  Cops responding to a 911 call shortly before 9 p.m. Friday discovered Malachi, 15, with a gunshot wound to his head near Lenox Road and Rockaway Parkway in Brownsville, officials said.

Medics rushed the youngster to Maimonides Medical Center, where he died, according to police.

“We won’t forget him,” Malachi’s sister told the Daily News Monday night. “We know he was good. He was loved,”

Shawn Mark, 42, a basketball coach who mentored Malachi, said the teen often acted as a peacemaker.

“I spoke to him Wednesday before he passed,” Marks said. “He had good vibes, really optimistic on his season coming up . He was telling me they had tryouts at his school and everything. I said, ‘Great, just make sure you’re trained and everything is ready to go.’ That’s the last conversation I had with him. I used to coach his brother, that’s how I knew Malachi for a long time.”

Mark and Malachi also knew Tae’Arion Mungo, 16, from local tournaments. Tae’Arion was shot in the chest on Saturday along Auburn Place near N. Portland Ave. outside NYCHA’s Walt Whitman Houses in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, cops said. The teen lived in a different apartment building in the same housing complex.

Medics rushed Tae’Arion to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Brooklyn Methodist, where he was pronounced dead.

“It’s really crazy, just how everything happened,” Mark said. “How close it is to home. I knew his father as well. This is just odd to me. All this s—t has to do with gun violence”

Sunday saw more bloodshed. That day, 15-year-old Tristan Sanders was shot twice in the chest and killed that night in a hallway of an Albany Houses apartment building on St. Marks Ave. near Troy Ave., cops said.

He died about 45 minutes later at Kings County Hospital.

“He was like my own child,” sad the boy’s aunt, Taniqua Quashie.“My nephews are like my kids, and I treat them that way. His mother is not taking this well.”

The deadly spate ended on Monday when Joshua Sparrow, 18, was shot in the head and killed in the Bronx in front of 961 Rev James Polite Avenue near a playground.

Sparrow was targeted on the street and ran into a building trying to escape when he collapsed in the lobby, a police source said.

“I wish this would have never happened,” his aunt posted on Facebook. “Life was cut  too short for you. I’m sorry for you!!!!”

Each shooting ended a life long before it reached its prime. The murders have something else in common. There have been no arrests.

One of two 16-year-olds killed within 24 hours in Brooklyn was a varsity basketball player was shot on Saturday in Fort Greene’s Whitman Houses, said cops.

Tae’Arion Mungo was hit in the chest at 11:44 p.m. on Auburn Place near N Portland Ave., less than 600 feet from where he lived with his father and grandmother in the Ingersoll Houses, a neighboring complex.

The teen’s father and aunt heard the shots and came outside to see Tae’Arion had been mortally wounded, said his grandmother.

“I can’t even talk right now. That’s the crazy thing, my mind is all over the place,” said grandmother Elizabeth Mungo. “That was my only grandson.”

The teen was rushed to Methodist Hospital, where he died.

The 11th grader, who attended George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School, played varsity basketball for the school’s team, the Warriors, said family.

The stunned grandmother recalled Tae’Arion as a bright, spirited teen.

“He enjoyed a good party, watching the games, the basketball games,” said Elizabeth Mungo.

“He loved to dance, he loved to sing. Excellent writer and story teller. He was just a good kid.”

Tae’Arion is also survived by two younger brothers, ages 15 and 11.

The teen was born in Virginia and moved with family to Brooklyn when he was 6. He went to school at P.S. 20 before going onto prep school in Fort Greene for middle school.

“Everyone in the school loved him, every school he went to,” said Elizabeth Mungo.

The teen planned on pursuing a career in the trades.

“He wanted to work as an electrician. Last week Friday he had an interview for an internship,” said the grandmother.

One of the teen’s friends posted a heartfelt message on Instagram the day after he was killed, along with video of a large memorial to him with dozens of candles, some with messages on them written to “Tae”.

“Tell me how do I move forward without you watching my back,” wrote Senai Cheaves. “And tell me how do I move on now that you gone, I can’t. my brother left me i’m scarred for life.”

Tae’Arion was the first of two 16-year-old boys killed by gunfire in Brooklyn NYCHA developments over the weekend.

The other teen, whose name has not been released, was shot twice in the chest in a hallway of an Albany Houses apartment building on St. Mark’s Ave. near Troy Ave. about 7:15 p.m. Sunday, cops said.

Medics rushed the teen to Kings County Hospital, where he died about 45 minutes later.

Two teens, one wearing a gray hoodie, the other a blue hoodie, ran from the scene and are being sought. Four shell casings were recovered between the second and third floors.

As of Sept. 30, there had been 17 homicide victims under the age of 18, according to information from the NYPD.

By the same time in 2023 there had been 27 victims who were minors, up slightly from 23 victims in the same time frame the year before but down significantly from the 39 victims under age 18 killed by Sept. 30, 2021.

There have been no arrests any of the murders.