NEW YORK — Nicole Cusack can't hold back tears when talking about Jahrell Gause. The 21-year-old was killed on July 5 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, one of 63 people shot during a violent holiday weekend in the city.
"Just to hold my son one more time, I would give up anything, because this pain that I feel is crushing me. Because somebody took my baby and I can't hold my baby no more,” a tearful said Cusack.
"I miss him so much,” Cusack added. "Not a day don't go by I don't cry for my child."
Cusack is Gause's stepmom and helped to raise him since he was born. Now that he's gone, she and the rest of the family, including Gause's biological mother, are pledging to raise his two-year-old daughter Harmony together. They brought the toddler to Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn to visit his grave.
"It's helping us, like we know he's there," says Cusack. “It hurts. The pain don't go away. But we're taking his daughter there also. Like, this is the way daddy is resting. He's sleeping. And she says, 'I love you, daddy.'”
But family members say they refuse to go to the site of the killing. Gause was shot about 5:30 on a Sunday afternoon, caught in the crossfire as bullets flew through the crowd gathered at a playground by the Glenmore public housing complex.
"The camera shows a group of people. Then it shows them running. When it goes back around, you see my son on the ground," says Cusack. “This wasn't meant for him. He just got one of the bullets, just caught him as he was running."
Law enforcement sources said the shooting was gang-related and that it occurred in an where gang activity is prevalent but Gause was not the intended target. He was struck in the chest and died at Brookdale Hospital. There have been no arrests and the investigation is ongoing.
Following his death, Cusask and Gause's biological mom, Leslie Edwards, launched an anti-violence group.
"We started an organization called 'Blood on the Bricks' because our kids' blood is being left on the streets," Edwards said. “Where is the help? We're crying out for help. We're asking for it. We're trying to get it. Where is it, though?"
There have been more than a thousand shootings this year in the city, with about half taking place in Brooklyn. That compares to 772 shooting incidents in all of 2019. Shots were recently fired right on Cusack's Bedford-Stuyvesant's block.
""I never thought I would leave the city,” sid Cusack. “But July 5, when I lost my son, I can't get away from here fast enough."
"I just want it to stop,” says Edwards. “I don't want to see another mother cry. I don't want to see another child get buried."
They decided they'll move down south together to care for Harmony, away from the violent streets that took their son's life.
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