A 45-year-old Bronx man has been charged with murder in the July 25 stray-bullet death of Jacob Freytes, 12 — an innocent bystander whose father is an NYPD sergeant — outside a Grand Concourse bodega. Mayor Mamdani and Bronx BP Vanessa Gibson both responded publicly.

Jacob Freytes, 12, was riding his bike on Elliot Place near the Grand Concourse in the Bronx on Saturday afternoon when a brawl broke out among roughly six men in front of him. A stray bullet struck him in the chest. Freytes stumbled back into the Wanda Deli Grocery — where he had just bought a ball — collapsed at the front counter, and was declared dead at Lincoln Hospital. His father, an NYPD sergeant, was in Connecticut at the time of the shooting and raced back to the Bronx after learning what had happened, his uncle Julio Lopez told the New York Post.

A 45-year-old Bronx man has since been charged with murder in Freytes's death, Gothamist reported, with police moving to an arrest within roughly 24 hours of the July 25, approximately 5:30 p.m. shooting. The gunfire erupted after the brawl on Elliot Place near Grand Concourse; suspects had initially fled in a black BMW. Two other men — aged 25 and 34 — were also wounded and treated at Bronx Lebanon Hospital in stable condition.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the killing a "heinous act" in a statement on X that night. "Our children should be able to ride their bikes on a nice summer day in their neighborhood without fear of being shot," Mamdani wrote. Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson posted a video statement saying she was "outraged, heartbroken, disgusted." "These damn guns, these damn guns, these damn guns," she said.

The killing came less than two weeks after Mamdani announced an expansion of community violence interruption groups as part of a summer safety plan that also includes a roughly 3,800-officer NYPD summer surge — and three weeks after a masked gunman wounded eight people, including four children, at a Coney Island cookout on July 4.