An Upper West Side man who had worked on recovery efforts after Hurricane Sandy was shot and killed in Queensbridge over the weekend, police and family said.
Francisco Leal, 27, of West 63rd Street in Manhattan had been walking out of a liquor store in his old neighborhood on 21st Street and 41st Avenue in Queens around 9:40 p.m. Saturday when two men approached, family members said.
Leal seemed to sense trouble and pulled a liquor bottle from his bag as if to defend himself, relatives said.
One of his foes pulled out a gun and shot him once in the chest, family members told The Post. Leal was rushed to Mt. Sinai Hospital in Queens, where he was pronounced dead.
The victim had been employed through FEMA working on demolition inside storm-damaged Bellevue Hospital, his distraught mother, Milagros Ortega, said. He grew up in the Queensbridge Houses near the scene of the crime.
“No more guns, please,” his mother said. “I don’t want it. I’m not supposed to bury my child at the age of 27, a month shy of his 28th birthday, because of the guns of New York. It needs to stop.”
Ortega did not know who wanted her son dead or why. The victim also was a rapper, and family members wonder if the shooter was a jealous rival or someone trying to settle an old score.
“His music was his life,” Ortega added.
Leal had an arrest record that included burglary, assault and witness intimidation in Queens. He was paroled in November.