‘How to bury my son’: Mother spoke exclusively after 13-year-old boy was shot on his way to school in the Bronx

It happened around 7:20 a.m. on 223 East Street in the Edenwald neighborhood.

The victim, Khamani Garrett, who attended the Manhattan Business Institute in Chelsea, was walking to the subway at the time.

Police say the gunman, who they believe was emotionally disturbed, walked up to him and opened fire.

Garrett was taken to Jacobi Hospital for surgery and is expected to survive.

“He said he was walking, and then the guy shot him,” said mother Abigail James.

Authorities said the 36-year-old suspect, identified as Hubert Wiggs, lived on the street, a location police knew of gun activity, and that when the child walked past his home, The suspect was outside swinging a gun and acting erratically. .

He then approached the boy and shot him, police said, with the bullet going in and out of his neck without severing an artery.

“He said the man couldn’t even look him in the eye, he didn’t look him in the eye,” said sister Sanaa Garrett. “He didn’t know he was shot. He thought it was a firework… I was going to go with him but I didn’t have everything together. So I left like him for two minutes. , so when I get the block, there’s nothing there. So I don’t see anything.”

The disoriented boy staggered away, bleeding profusely and calling for help. A passerby saw him and called 911.

“The first person he asked for help didn’t want to help him,” James said. “So then he asked other people for help, and they helped him. It really hurt my soul. I could have buried my son.”

The officers arrived and met Wiggs, still acting erratically, and arrested him.

“They gave the individual verbal orders to release that gun,” NYPD Assistant Chief Kenneth Lehr said. “The individual’s initial response was to attempt to hide it in the waistband of his pants. They gave further verbal orders, at which point the individual dropped the object. When officers moved in, arrest the individual. without incident and recovered a gun.”

Officials said his 38-caliber revolver with a used ring was recovered at the scene.

Wiggs was charged with attempted murder, assault, weapon possession, reckless endangerment and intimidation.

James said Khamani will celebrate her 14th birthday on Monday.

“Going home after school, I don’t have a problem with him,” she said. “He’s just a video game or on his phone maniac, that’s all he does.”

Police say Wiggs was arrested for possession of a loaded firearm in 2019 while he was still on parole for a 2010 gun seizure in Harlem.

On February 24, 2019, authorities said he broke into a vehicle in East Harlem and was in possession of a loaded .38 firearm, as well as drugs, at the time of his arrest.

That case has yet to go to trial, with his next court date expected in January.

On April 22, 2010, he was arrested for possession of a controlled substance and was found to be in possession of a .32 caliber Smith and Wesson.

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He had another arrest while on parole, in 2018, for grand theft.

He was granted conditional parole in 2015, which expires in April next year.

Police officials said he should never have been out on the streets.

“You’re talking about a 13-year-old boy going to school here,” Lehr said. “And he ended up having to go through this traumatic experience with someone who was paroled for a gun, released on bail for another, and today, he shot this boy in the neck.”

Wiggs spent a lot of time in the Bronx criminal court. But he wasn’t there on Tuesday night because he was consulting on psych instead.

When he is finally charged with second-degree murder, he will be eligible for bail. Again.

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