The 17-year-old girl struck in the back of the head by a stray bullet during a mass shooting in a Bronx park as she visited her old neighborhood is close friends with one of the accused gunmen, the Daily News has learned.
Anthonaya Campbell remains in critical condition at Jacobi Medical Center on Tuesday with a bullet from the Saturday shooting lodged behind her eye. She has long been pals with accused shooter Robert Royal, according to both her mother and the suspect’s mom.
Anthonaya Campbell, 17. (Courtesy of family)
“They’re like family,” Jennifer Talbot said of Royal, one of four suspects facing a slew of charges including murder and attempted murder.
Talbot on Tuesday visited Haffen Park in Baychester and somberly surveyed the scene where her daughter was shot watching a basketball tournament that was organized as a community giveback with free back-to-school supplies for kids. Anthonaya was scheduled to begin her senior year in high school this week.
Robert Royal. (Courtesy of Family)
About 50 rounds were let loose as all four shooters opened fire into a crowd inside the park from about 25 feet away, police sources said Tuesday as investigators continue to piece together how the mayhem unfolded.
Killed in the barrage of bullets was hospital worker Jaceil Blanks, an aspiring rapper. Cops are investigating whether the shooters were targeting Blanks, 32, or anyone else specifically — or just firing indiscriminately into the crowd where Blanks stood.
Blanks, known by his rapper name, “Killy,” worked doing “clean up” at a hospital when he wasn’t creating music, his family said.
A recent TikTok features Blanks showing off his dancing skills in his hospital scrubs in a hospital room while on lunch break.
“A lot of his family members were into music so he just followed it and pursued it,” said Blanks’ uncle Farrah Romero. “He was just trying to get everything done, man. It’s a tragedy. A friend of mine used to take him to the studio a lot.”
Blanks’ uncle says his family believes the shooting “had nothing to do with him.”
Blanks was shot in the chest near Burke and Wickman Aves., officials said. He posted a TikTok the day he died showing him joyfully dancing with a friend outdoors.
“He was just out there watching the game,” Romero said. “He just got cut short. But the music lives on.”
Police investigate on Sunday after five people were shot inside Haffen Park in the Bronx on Saturday. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
A motive for the shooting, which was caught on video recovered by cops, was not immediately clear because witnesses aren’t cooperating with investigators, the source said. The shooting is believed to be gang related in some way, police sources said.
Cops recovered at least five guns at the scene. Three of them were found on three of the suspects, officials said. One was seen thrown away by one of the accused shooters and a fifth was recovered in the park during a canvas after the shooting, cops said.
Gunshots erupted just before 7:30 p.m. as the basketball game was winding down in the park.
Campbell was shot in the back of the head as she was enjoying the game across the street from her family’s old apartment.
“(The basketball game) was not taken as seriously as it should have and because of that, came the casualties,” said Campbell’s sister, who wished not to be named. Both she and her mother believe that there should have been more cops at the game to deter the violence that erupted.
Anthonaya, who moved with her mother to Connecticut five years ago, was back in her old stomping grounds to celebrate her recent birthday with family who still live in an apartment on the park.
Royal, as well as Daeven Reyes, 20, and a 16- and 17-year-old boy were nabbed at the scene. All four were charged with murder, attempted murder and gun possession. The names of the two younger suspects were not publicly released because of their ages.
Royal and Reyes were ordered held without bail during their arraignments late Monday.
Royal’s mother Mattie Losey, 50, insists her son is innocent.
“My son was part of the tournament. He was volunteering, he was passing out bags,” she said. “They don’t have anything on my son. Wrong place wrong time.”
She confirmed her son and Anthonaya were pals. “He is their friend,” she said.
Just hours before the shooting, Anthonaya’s mom was awarded her Ph.D. in psychology at a graduation ceremony at Heart Bible International University in Connecticut.
Blanks also recently celebrated a birthday. Friends and family put up a memorial of photos and candles outside the Gun Hill Houses, where Blanks grew up about a mile-and-a-half from the park where he was killed.
“My son was enjoying his Saturday because he worked on his birthday,” Blanks’ heartbroken mother posted on X. “He just wanted to watch a basketball game, and he was killed. He didn’t deserve that.”
A memorial for Jaceil Blanks outside the Gun Hill Houses where he grew up. (Sheetal Banchariya / New York Daily News)
His mother, who lives in Atlanta, rushed to New York and visited the Gun Hill Houses after his slaying.
“I wanted to see what the neighborhood did for my son,” she posted on social media. “It was beautiful. I stayed out there all night. Everybody around here is broken. We are so tired of these types of deaths. I’m sorry Killy.”
Romero acknowledged his nephew had some run-ins with the law when he was younger but had turned his life around. Police said he had been arrested at least three times, including once in 2017 when he was caught with a counterfeit $100 bill. He was also arrested for a robbery in 2011.
“Within the last 10 years, he turned into a totally different person,” Romero said.
Debris on the bleachers of a basketball court in Haffen Park in the Bronx where five people were shot during a basketball tournament. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Three other victims survived the shooting and are expected to recover.
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, cops said. And 42-year-old man went to Montefiore Hospital by private means.
