An 18-year-old was fatally shot and four other people were shot or robbed at a social-media-organized car meet-up in the Bronx early Sunday, and police say no arrests have been made.
Werling Mendez, 18, took a bullet to the head during a predawn gathering on East 233rd Street near Boston Road in the Eastchester section of the Bronx, the New York Post reported. He was rushed to BronxCare Health System, where he died. Mendez lived in the Olinville neighborhood, roughly three miles from where he was killed.
He was not the only victim. A 22-year-old man was shot in the chest. A 20-year-old woman was shot in the foot. A 25-year-old woman who had been delivering slushies for a local business was robbed of her chain and wallet. A 37-year-old woman was robbed at gunpoint of her cell phone and a diamond chain. All four surviving victims were hospitalized in stable condition.
Sources told the Post that investigators recovered more than 60 shell casings at the scene. As of Monday, police had no suspect information and had made zero arrests.
The shooting happened at approximately 5:40 a.m. Sunday, at a gathering that fits what the NYPD has called a "social-media-fueled street-showdown trend." These car meet-ups, promoted online, drawing crowds to public streets for reckless driving stunts, have become a recurring headache for New York City law enforcement. Who was targeted in Sunday's gunfire remains unclear.
It was not the first time one of these events turned dangerous. In mid-April, a car meet-up at the border of the Maspeth and Middle Village neighborhoods in Queens featured reckless driving and a ring of fire. A motorist waved a Palestinian flag. Two men jumped onto the hood of a marked police vehicle and cracked the windshield.
Two people were arrested in connection with that Queens incident. Both were released in court on non-bail-eligible charges.
That outcome drew a pointed response from the NYPD at the time:
"These car meets will not go away unless there are real repercussions in the criminal justice system. The NYPD will continue to dedicate significant resources to stop these dangerous and reckless events."
Four months later, a teenager is dead on a Bronx street, and the department's warning reads less like a prediction than a description of the status quo.
The lack of arrests in the Bronx shooting lands in a city where accountability for violent crime has become an open question. The pattern is not limited to car meet-ups. A separate Bronx case illustrates the problem in starker terms: Bronx Supreme Court Justice Naita Semaj-Williams dismissed the murder indictment against 17-year-old Steven Mendez, no relation to the victim in Sunday's shooting, who allegedly shot and killed 21-year-old Saikou Koma in a case of mistaken identity, Fox News reported. The judge offered no public explanation for dropping the charge.
Steven Mendez had already been given a second chance. He was released on five years' probation for a 2020 armed robbery in which a victim was shot in the leg, avoiding a four-year prison sentence. His criminal history also allegedly includes holding his own mother at gunpoint when she refused to give him money.
Haja Kaira, the mother of the man Steven Mendez allegedly killed, did not mince words:
"The judge believes my son's life means nothing. This is why they will keep killing because they know there are no consequences."
Her statement could apply just as easily to the car meet-up scene on East 233rd Street. More than 60 shell casings on the pavement. One young man dead. Four others victimized. No one in custody.
The NYPD has said it will dedicate "significant resources" to stopping these meet-ups. But resources without consequences amount to a show of force that produces no force. The two people arrested after the Queens incident walked out of court. The suspects in Sunday's fatal shooting have not even been identified.
Meanwhile, the gatherings keep getting promoted on social media, crowds keep showing up, and the violence keeps escalating, from cracked windshields in Queens to a body at a Bronx hospital.
Werling Mendez was 18. He lived three miles from where he died. The criminal justice system that the NYPD itself said needs to deliver "real repercussions" has yet to produce a single arrest in his case.
When the system tells violent offenders there are no consequences, it should stop acting surprised when they believe it.
