Mom prays at bedside of man shot in caught-on-video NYC fish market robbery
As police cuffed the gunman who shot a customer in the face during a recent robbery at a Manhattan fish market, the victim’s mother sat by his hospital bed and prayed Sunday he will make a full recovery.
Harrison Ferena, 37, was critically wounded in the shocking caught-on-camera robbery at Seafood King Fish Market on Broadway near W. 163rd St. in Washington Heights on Wednesday.
He was sitting at the counter when the masked gunman, identified by police as Heiton Camacho Bonilla, walked in brandishing a gun.
The robber placed a plastic bag on the countertop and ordered an employee to hand over cash from the register and her phone, according to cops. Pointing a gun at the back of Ferena’s head, he demanded that he turn over his phone, too, they added.
After the crook snatched up the stolen goods, he abruptly fired a shot into the back of Ferena’s head and made for the exit, surveillance footage shows.
Medics rushed Ferena to Metropolitan Hospital, where he underwent numerous surgeries, his devastated mother told the Daily News on Sunday.
“He hasn’t spoken yet,” Grace Pena said from her son’s bedside. “”He is not in a coma. He’s sleeping.”
Ferena is in stable condition and doctors are not anticipating he will need any more immediate surgeries, according to Pena.
“We hope that he’s going to recuperate,” she said. “We believe in God.
“He’s getting better,” Pena added.
The woman said her well-liked son, a father of a girl, ate at the fish market nearly everyday.
“[At] the hospital, there was a long line to see my son,” Pena said. “There’s so many people to see him.”
Ferena’s close friend Angel Perez watched the jarring surveillance video that showed the moment Ferena was shot, tumbling off his barstool and to the floor of the market.
“All of a sudden, I saw the video,” he said. “I was sad because he’s a good man. He’s a family man.”
On Saturday, police arrested Camacho Bonilla, of Harlem, and charged him with attempted murder, robbery and assault, among other charges.
Following an arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court, he was held without bail.
