In Brooklyn, a Mother Loses a Second Child to Street Violence

Photo via Darell Kingsberry/Facebook.

When 35-year-old Darell Kingsberry — shot dead on a Bed-Stuy sidewalk early Saturday morning — was released from prison two years ago, his mother says she begged him to come live with her in Maryland.

“Everybody else in the family has moved out of Brooklyn” to escape neighborhood street violence, says 60-year-old Darnella Kingsberry in an interview. “But not Darell.”

Speaking by phone on Saturday afternoon, Darnella is barely audible through her tears.

“I can’t breathe,” she says. “I’m so hurt. I don’t know why they killed my son. Nobody can tell me what happened.”

Darnella used to live in Brownsville, near the border with Bed-Stuy. But she left Brooklyn around 10 years ago — a few years after another of her sons, Nacoma Haskin, then 22, was shot and killed outside a McDonald’s in Jamaica, Queens.

“Sometimes, I just feel like it’s a curse,” she said in a 2002 interview with the New York Post. “Everything is caving in — I’m losing my kids one by one.”

At the time, Darnella’s daughter, Darshen, then 25, was on trial for allegedly participating in the murder of Good Samaritan Rupinder Singh. And her son Darell, the man killed in Bed-Stuy this Saturday morning, was on trial for allegedly gunning down a teenage rival in Queens.

These days, her daughter, Darshen, is still behind bars. ”She’s still in there — they gave her 24 years to life,” says Darnella. (“And she didn’t even do it,” she claims.)

Darell also served 12 years behind bars, but was released two years ago, his mother says.

Darrell had been living with relatives on Broadway Street, along the border of Bushwick and Bed-Stuy, according to Darnella. She says he’d been trying to get his life together — by working odd jobs, writing a book and starting a clothing line — but that all those years in prison had changed him.

“He was a little bitter,” she says. ”He was always just reaching out for love.”

Darell posted the following rap lyrics to his Facebook page one summer ago, airing the pain built up from a life of poverty and imprisonment — one that he was determined to turn around.

Police say an unidentified suspect shot and killed Darrell on the sidewalk outside 165 Van Buren Street — right across from a Baptist Church — on Saturday, August 15, around 7:45 a.m.

“I had six kids,” Darnella says as she’s consumed by another wave of tears. “Now I have four.”

According to police, responding officers found Darell on Van Buren with multiple gunshot wounds to the torso. “EMS also responded and transported the male to Woodhull Hospital, where he was pronounced deceased,” says an NYPD statement.

”There are no arrests at this time,” police say. “The investigation is ongoing.”

Witnesses and police sources tell the New York Daily News that Darell was with an unidentified woman when he was shot. “She was going crazy,” says a local. “She was screaming and screaming. I thought maybe she was shot too.”

The scene was littered with at least three shell casings, the victim’s black baseball hat and bloodied red and white shirt, police sources said.

The gunman, who was wearing a red shirt and beige shorts, remains on the loose.

As of Saturday afternoon, Darnella is waiting on a ride from Maryland to New York City to identify her son’s body. She’s anxious to know who killed Darnell, and why.

She’s also unsure how she’ll find the funds to bury a second child.

“He didn’t have any insurance,” she says. “I don’t have the money. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Any members of the community who would like to lend their support to Darnella Kingsberry can reach her at (443) 653-4552.