"I'm asking for justice": Mother of 12-year-old Kade Lewin, shot dead in Brooklyn, speaks out
NEW YORK -- The family of a 12-year-old shot and killed in Brooklyn met with Mayor Eric Adams Monday.
They're speaking out for the first time.
"All I'm asking, please come forward. Please, please, somebody say something," they boy's mother, Suzette Lewin, cried.
As CBS2's Leah Mishkin reports, it was hard to watch - a mother in pain after losing her child.
It has been four days since her son Kade was killed. She pleaded to the public for information that could lead to an arrest.
"I'm asking for justice for Kade," she said. "Please. I'm asking for justice. Please."
The NYPD said the 12-year-old boy was eating in a car with his 20-year-old cousin, Jenna Ellis, and her 8-year-old niece last Thursday when there was an exchange of gunfire between two other cars on East 56th Street and Linden Boulevard Thursday night around 7:45 p.m.
A bullet, police say, hit Kade Lewin in the head. He died on the scene.
"My nephew, he's gone. No more to return in this world. My daughter laid up in the hospital. This violence, this gun action, it must be stopped," Kade's aunt said.
Adams held up a pair of Kade's sneakers and repeated a question: Whose child is next?
"Promising young people snatched away from us. For no other reason - too many guns on our streets, too many people who are willing to use those guns to harm innocent people," Adams said.
The mayor called on the city to urgently put an end to the violence.
"This amazing young girl was just taking care of her young family members, pulled over just to watch a movie and to eat the food. Six bullets in that baby girl, this baby girl here, this baby girl," Adams said.
"Your NYPD is doing everything it can and knows how to do well to deter and prevent and apprehend those responsible, but we need your help. Kade's mother needs your help," said Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell. "Murders, shootings, robberies, assaults go against everything we should believe ourselves to be."
Community leaders also expressed their outrage and desperate calls for change.
"I'm here to just plead with everybody to be on one accord about this gun violence that is literately killing people. He is not coming back. He will not be back. He's 12 years old. His mother raised him as best as she could -- 'A' student, not in the street, doing everything right, just like Jenna. They paused in their community to eat something and were shot," Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said. "That is unacceptable by any stretch of the imagination. There has to be consequences and accountability for that."
"I am tired. Enough is enough. I don't even know what to say anymore to a parent, because I'm a mom of four. That's my home, I live here, I've been here since I was 17 years old," added Councilmember Mercedes Narcisse.
Lewin's family said they are currently in the process of making funeral arraignments.
Anyone with any information is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). You can also submit a tip via their website or via DM on Twitter, @NYPDTips. All calls are kept confidential.
The 8 year old girl in the car was not injured. The family is asking for privacy during this difficult time to grieve.
Leah Mishkin contributed to this report.
