A New York man was fatally shot Monday afternoon after confronting a teenager who was talking loudly on a cell phone aboard a city bus in the Bronx, police said.
Jonathan Pettigrew, 41, was riding a Bx36 bus around 2:30 p.m. near East Tremont Avenue and White Plains Road when he confronted the teen about the volume of his phone conversation. The teen then pulled a handgun and shot Pettigrew in the abdomen, according to authorities.
First responders rushed Pettigrew to Jacobi Medical Center, where he later died.
Police said the suspect fled the scene and remains at large.
An employee at the nearby Family Mexican Deli told Gothamist that surveillance video appeared to show the gunman fleeing south on White Plains Road. Authorities said the suspect was last seen wearing a white T-shirt.
“ Right now it’s just hard for me to believe what’s going on because I’m really, like, in a state of shock,” Pettigrew’s older brother, Avery Pettigrew, told Gothamist.
He said his brother struggled with anxiety and was particularly sensitive to loud noise.
“ He got this anxiety where he, like me, we can’t be around a lot of noise,” Pettigrew said. “I guess the person that was on the phone was being very disrespectful and loud, and it was bothering him.”
Pettigrew worked in catering and was the father of seven children. He was likely on his way to pick up his youngest daughter from school when he was shot, two of his aunts told The New York Times.
“This is his routine: He drops her off at school, he goes to work, he gets off work, he picks her up,” his aunt, Sandra Ferguson, said. “I just can’t believe this.”
“He took real good care of that little girl,” another aunt, Sabrina Vereen, said.
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