A New York man who was shot to death by his own mother was murdered over weed in Brooklyn, according to a neighbor.
28-year-old Christopher Jenkins just wanted to relax when he arrived at the Crown Heights home he shared with his mother around 10 p.m on October 12.
But Jenkins’ mother insisted he run back out and get her some beer and a bag of weed — and when he said, “No,” things quickly got heated, the neighbor said.
“He just came home from work and he said to his mom, ‘I don’t feel like going out. I just got home from work. Can you give me a break?’ Something like that,” according to the neighbor, who did not want to be named.
“I was here when it happened. I was asleep, they woke me up. They were arguing.”
The rattled neighbor said she heard the dispute on the other side of thin walls that offer little privacy.
She also heard the gunshots, and the commotion that followed.
“I heard two gunshots,” she said. “The arguing first, and then the shots. I was scared. I was scared. I closed my door. The police told me I had to come out of the building. My son came and got me and we were outside. It was cold. I had no socks on.”
Police arrested 44-year-old Vanessa Jenkins and charged her with attempted murder, weapon possession and criminal use of a firearm. She is being held at Rikers Island on bail of either $500,000 cash or $1 million bond.
According to a criminal complaint, Vanessa Jenkins shot her son in the head after a “confrontation.”
Medics rushed Jenkins, a father of two, to Kings County Hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery and was put on life support. He died there on October 24, authorities said.
His mother could face upgraded charges in the wake of her son’s death.
The shaken neighbor said Jenkins didn’t refuse his mother’s request. He just told her he wanted to rest first.
“He said to her, ‘Mom, I’m not going right now. I’ll go later on. Just let me rest,” the neighbor said. “He said, ‘I’m gonna wait til later. Stop playing around.’ She said, ‘You gotta go now I need it.’ I remember I heard that. ‘Go,’ she said to him.”
Another neighbor said the suspected shooter was so callous that she dragged her son out of the building, stepped over his body and walked away as cops were arriving.
Police said mother and son had a history of prior arrests.
Another neighbor said she had a run-in with the victim about a week and a half before he died. She said Jenkins blocked the driveway with his car and refused to move. When her husband told Jenkins he was acting like an idiot, he walked over to confront him while reaching in his pocket, she said.
She said their daughter pulled her husband back inside.
The neighbor said the mother wasn’t any nicer.
“I heard her one night,” she said. “A lot of obscenities. She was cussing someone out. I don’t know who it was. I couldn’t see. She was saying, ‘Don’t F with me. You don’t know who the F I am! I’m gonna F you up.’”
The neighbor who overheard the weed argument said she couldn’t believe how quickly it escalated.
“That’s crazy, man,” she said. “Why you wanna kill your son? Why?! Give me a why. Why you gonna do something like that? I’d kill myself.”
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