By Rebecca White, Nicholas Williams, New York Daily News
The teen girl struck in the head by a stray bullet during a Bronx park mass shooting has died after fighting for life for more than two weeks, her family confirms.
Anthonaya Campbell, 17, died at Jacobi Medical Center at 12:34 p.m. on Monday after her family made the heartrending choice to take her off life support. She had been declared brain-dead, her aunt said.
“I’ve been with the family since this happened,” Bishop Boyde Singletary said Wednesday. “The family is in an uproar. The family is very upset because that young lady was a breath of fresh air.”
Anthonaya was watching a basketball tournament at Haffen Park across the street from her family’s old apartment in Baychester when the shooting broke out at about 7:25 p.m. on Aug 23.
Fifty-seven shots were fired, prosecutors later said.
“She was just watching a game,” Singletary said. “For this to happen, for her to just get hit innocently, mistakenly like that, it’s still devastating.”
The shooting left one man dead, three adults wounded and Anthonaya, who was a bystander, shot in the back of her head.
Anthonaya had been staying in the Bronx to celebrate her 17th birthday on Aug. 8. The teen was supposed to return home to Connecticut to start her senior year of high school in Hartford on Aug 26.
The basketball tournament was promoted as a community giveback, with the first 100 kids to show up promised free back-to-school supplies. The shooting sparked off in the park near Wickham and Burke Aves.
“She was watching the basketball tournament and she just happened to be in the park,” the teen’s aunt Elizabeth Gardener said at the time of the shooting. “They heard the shots and people started to run and the direction she ran, I guess it hit her in the head. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“The bullet went from the back of her head and it’s lodged behind her eye,” Gardener added. “People know her. She’s very friendly. She’s never had any issues. She’s like a little saint.”
Anthonaya had dreams to be a speech pathologist. Despite the move to Connecticut, her relatives always felt safe in Baychester, where much of her family remained.
“She could go far, and this is just not fair,” her aunt said.
Jaceil Banks, 32, was fatally shot in the chest during the mass shooting that saw more than 40 bullets fired and six guns recovered by police in the brazen shootout.
A 30-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman, both shot in the back, made it to Jacobi Medical Center by private means and were in stable condition. A 42-year-old man went to Montefiore Medical Center by private means and was expected to recover.
Daeven Reyes, 20, and Robert Royal, 25, were taken into custody at the scene along with a 16-year-old boy and 17-year-old boy. All four were later charged with murder, attempted murder and gun possession, police said. The names of the two younger suspects were not publicly released because they are juveniles.
All four suspects are accused of opening fire.
Royal and Reyes were ordered held without bail during their arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court.
With Sheetal Banchariya
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