Hours after he was brutally executed in The Bronx, graphic images of Christopher Duran’s bullet-riddled body emerged online — due to neighbors and friends linking to grisly photos taken by some in the crowd that gathered around the slain teen.
“This picture really broke my heart,” one Instagram user wrote, referring to a picture of the 14-year-old from Morrisania murdered Friday morning on his way to school. “Bronx aint no place to live.”
“That’s my brother right there,” another friend commented about a photo of the seventh-grader, whose bloody body lay crumpled on Sheridan Avenue. “I was suppose to see him today.”
Another person added, “Im scared for my little brother and im scared for all my brothers.”
Duran, a seventh-grader at IS 206 on Aqueduct Avenue, was stalked and gunned down just steps from his apartment building at around 8:30 a.m., cops said.
Investigators have described the slaying as a “gang-related” incident.
Duran had ties to the local “208” crew — which is affiliated with the nationally reviled Crips gang — and had five prior arrests, including two attempted assaults.
Social-media posts from the past seem to paint a portrait of a boy who loved the gang lifestyle.
In several images posted to Instagram, Duran flashes what appears to be the letter C — a hand signal for the Crips.
On an Instagram profile that friends said belonged to Duran, he links to a YouTube rap video showing a group of young men wearing blue bandanas, rolling marijuana blunts and flashing wads of cash.
Blue is a color associated with the Crips. Their arch rivals, the Bloods, in turn flash red — the same color as the bandana worn by Duran’s still-unapprehended killer.
A person who appears to be Duran is in the rap video and apparently making gang signs.
Still, some aren’t sure whether the affiliations are genuine.
“Some of these kids are throwing up signs without even being affiliated,” said Lee McClendon, a Morrisania drug counselor.
Duran’s killer may have indirectly caused another death, that of the boy’s grandfather, who was hospitalized in the Dominican Republic and suffered a fatal heart attack upon hearing of the slaying.
“When they called to give him the news, he died,” said neighbor Rogelio Perez, 28.