A heartbreaking video captured a Bronx shooting victim’s last breaths as bystanders pleaded — ultimately in vain – for the bleeding man to cling to life.
The footage obtained by The Post shows the final moments of the 38-year-old victim Victor Bautista’s life after he was shot in the chest following a dispute with another man near Trinity Avenue and East 149th Street in Melrose around 7:45 a.m. Tuesday.
“Breathe! Breathe,” a good Samaritan frantically begs in the clip as Bautista lies on the street groaning. He lifts Bautista by the shoulder to examine the gunshot wound.
“It didn’t go through! It didn’t go through,” he shouts. “I got you, I got you,” he says. “Breathe!”
A chorus of bystanders shouts out, “Call 911!”
The Samaritan resumes his efforts to keep Bautista from slipping away.
“Open your eyes, bro! Oh my God! Get up,” he tells Bautista.
But things quickly took a turn for the worse.
“It’s getting low, it’s getting low,” he says, panic growing in his voice. “His pulse is getting low, man. He’s going, he’s going, man. This n—a’s going to die in my hands, man!”
He starts trying to pump Bautista’s chest in a desperate bid to revive him, the footage shows.
A woman approaches the dying man whom she calls DaDa and clutches his hand.
“DaDa, squeeze my hand,” she says, clutching his limp hand.
“Yo, yo, stay with us, bro,” the Samaritan shouts as he continues to pump his chest.
Moments later, police arrive and take over life-saving measures.
Bautista was later pronounced dead at Lincoln Hospital, police said.
A second video, security footage from a bodega, shows the moment the victim was struck by the fatal bullet.
Bautista can be seen getting into an animated argument with a man leaning against a wall outside of a business. He punches the man and the two wrestle, according to the video.
Then the other man suddenly fires a gun at Bautista, striking him once in the chest, according to the clip.
The shooter runs across Trinity Avenue. Bautista, in shock, reaches for his chest. He staggers along the sidewalk, briefly goes off camera, and then collapses, his head bouncing off a van as he falls to the street.
Bautista’s killer remains at large.
Fernando Mateo, a spokesman for the United Bodegas of America, said Bautista died just steps from D’mi Muñeca Grocery, a bodega on Trinity Avenue. His violent death, he said, is another reason to install panic buttons in bodegas across the city.
“The entire incident was captured by the store’s surveillance cameras. You can see the argument. You can see the shooting. It’s all there,” Mateo said in a statement.
The owners of the bodega have been in the community for a decade.
“Today, they are shaken. They are scared. They are not sure what tomorrow looks like,” he said.
Mateo said that his organization will install a panic button at the store to provide the owners with “peace of mind,” but he added that the NYPD needs to step up and provide more resources, like real-time access to bodega cameras.
“The NYPD should not be watching these videos after someone has already died,” he said. “They should be seeing them live so they can respond before the next shot is fired.”
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