NYC man fatally shot in head was just bystander visiting friend, dad says — marking second innocent gunned down in as many days
A young man fatally shot in the head in the Bronx was an innocent bystander visiting with an out-of-town friend from Detroit, his shell-shocked father told The Post Thursday.
The tragic killing of Daoud Marji, a 28-year-old plumber's apprentice, Wednesday evening marked the second time in as many days that an innocent New Yorker was slain in random gun violence on the city's streets.
'What am I going to do? He was my blood,' heartbroken Saed Marji, 56, said from his home in Yonkers.
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The grieving dad said he encouraged Daoud not to travel to the Bronx, because he heard the area was bad.
But Marji pressed on, bringing him to University Avenue near West Kingsbridge Road just before 5 p.m. — the wrong place at the wrong time.
'Then I get a call from a Detroit number – 'Daoud, he got shot,'' Saed said, recounting the fateful call.
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'I'm a strong man, but I'm shocked. I have to take care of my family. My wife, she's very bad.'
Daoud, a plumber's apprentice, was killed in the second fatal bystander shooting in just a few days.
A trailblazing Harlem bodega owner and community fixture — Excenia Mette, 61 — was also fatally shot in the head Tuesday when she ran outside to check on her grandson.
The Harlem shooting prompted an outcry of grief from a community often gripped by gun violence.
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Barely a day had passed before Marji, too, was randomly gunned down. Another bystander in the Bronx shooting — a 33-year-old woman — was also shot in the chaos, police said.
The shooting unfolded when a shooter or shooters fired bullets in a crowd, law-enforcement sources said.
Marji had immigrated to the US from Jordan when he was a child, his father said. He worked as a plumber's apprentice.
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Family friend Ray Khoury, 56, said Marji didn't have a 'bad bone in his body.'
'He came when he was very young from the Middle East with his family, a hardworking family,' Khoury said.
'They always helped out the community, especially Daoud. It's a great loss for our community. He was very outgoing, very helpful, very polite. Called everybody uncle or auntie.'
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