A Brooklyn, N.Y., father was killed after he took back his son's baseball cap from one of the teens who'd stolen it, authorities say.
It all started Saturday when 17-year-old Gerald Sealey was playing basketball outside in Brooklyn's Flatbush neighborhood. Three teens roughed Gerald up and took his Don C Oakland Raiders baseball cap. The hat features a snakeskin bill and can fetch as much as $400 on eBay. Jay Z and Kanye West have worn similar versions of the stylish cap, the New York Daily News reports.
On Wednesday, Gerald was at the same basketball court when he spotted one of the teens wearing his cap. Gerald called his father, Gerald Cummings, 38, who came to the courts and confronted the teens. Cummings snatched the cap off the 16-year-old robber's head and began walking away, officials say. The teen followed Cummings, attempting to get the hat back from him. At one point, one of the teens took out a gun and began firing, authorities say. Cummings was fatally shot in the head in front of his son, the Daily News reports.
"He did what any father would do and that’s stand up for his children," Earl Saunders, 34, Cummings’ longtime friend and co-worker at a blood-testing lab told the Daily News. "All he did was confront the kids that beat up his son—and lost his life in the process of defending his child."
Police sources told the Daily News that Cummings was shot in the back, head and the right temple. He was rushed to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Cummings also leaves behind an 11-year-old son who was not present during the incident. His 17-year-old son, Gerald, was not injured during the altercation.
"He was a caring, hardworking man," Cummings’ nephew Jahquel Davis told the Daily News. "I don’t know what to say."
Read more at the New York Daily News.