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Family Devastated After Father Dies From Fatal Heart Attack On Same Day His Son Dies From A Gunshot Wound

A GoFundMe page has been set up for Duro Akil and Okera Ras.

A family in the Bronx, New York, was devastated when they suffered the loss of two family members on the same day.

On Monday, 34-year-old Duro Akil was shot in the torso when a man fired shots through the door of Akil’s building. Although Akil took a bullet, he was not the intended target, said police. The suspect reportedly was in a fight with a neighbor when he fired his weapon, reported New York Daily News.

Akil was rushed to the Jacobi Medical Center. Two days later, he was pronounced dead.

After Akil’s death, his family went back to the scene of the shooting on Wednesday to tell his father, Okera Ras I. When they got inside the apartment, they found the 54-year-old unresponsive.

“We were in the middle of the street screaming. In shock,” Akil’s sister, Makini, told the Daily News. “It was like something out of a movie scene.”

Makini Akil said the family believes Ras I died of a broken heart. Following Ras I’s death, an autopsy was performed and showed that he most likely died of a heart attack, according to the city medical examiner.

“It was really too much for him,” Makini said. “It was really like heartbreak.”

Ras I was present at the time of Akil’s shooting. During the Monday night gunfire, a man was in a fight with Akil’s neighbor. As the fight escalated, the man pulled out a gun and started banging on the door. Akil, his brother, and his father were frightened by the banging and came out into the hallway to look. However, when they emerged from their apartment, the man began firing and struck Akil.

“The way this happened, it’s stupid,” Daquan Johnson, the brother of the neighbor, told the Daily News. “It was ego. That’s all it was.”

After the shooting, the gunman got into his car and fled the scene. Police have identified him but were still hunting for him Friday night.

Friends have launched a GoFundMe page to help the family cover funeral costs and other expenses.

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