BRONX (WABC) — A 41-year-old man was shot and killed on an MTA bus in the Bronx on Monday after an argument, police say.
The shooting happened on a BX36 bus on White Plains Road and East Tremont Avenue just before 3 p.m.
It appears the victim, Jonathan Pettigrew, told the gunman to stop yelling on his cellphone.
An argument ensued and the suspect, described as a young man in his teens, shot Pettigrew in the abdomen.
Pettigrew was taken to Jacobi Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
His family said he had just gotten an apartment last year because he finally had full custody of his 7-year-old daughter.
“I called my cousin, she told me and I dropped my phone in the pizzeria and I just started screaming, everybody started coming to me and I was screaming, I can’t even comprehend how I’m feeling right now,” said the victim’s relative Dana Hammond.
The single father was building a life and working at a restaurant. He wanted to be with his daughter full time and loved being a father.
He walked her to and from school every day. His family said his daughter doesn’t know that her father is gone.
“I really want justice for my brother, no matter what the cost, it wasn’t right, it shouldn’t have gone that far in the first place, and plus it happened in the city transit,” said the victim’s brother Avery Pettigrew. “It’s not good for our community.”
Surveillance video shows passengers running off the bus moments after gunshots rang out, including a least one rider with a baby stroller.
“I just saw a whole bunch of commotion, whole bunch of people outside, where the bus is parked is actually not a bus stop so that’s how it caught my attention,” said witness Destiny Flores. “A whole bunch of people when we went outside., the cops were already outside. We thought maybe somebody was hit by the bus until one of the kids on the bus came across the street and let us know that it was a shooting.”
The MTA says this is the first homicide on a bus this year.
It’s unclear if the bus camera caught the shooting. Police have not yet released any images of the gunman.
No arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.
