The Bronx teen who was gunned down and found by his father yesterday was likely killed by a stray bullet fired two blocks away from the local park where he was playing tennis, police sources said today.
Kemar Bryan Brooks, 14, was found dead yesterday with a bullet in the back of his head shortly before 6 a.m. in Haffen Park on Bruner and Burke avenues, cops said.
Cops found five shell casings in a basketball court adjacent to where Kemar went to play tennis Thursday night, a law-enforcement source said.
But detectives now believe there was a second shooting a few hours later, two blocks away from the Baychester park. Kemar would have been “clipped” in the second round of bullets in a “one-in-a-million” chance of being struck, police sources said.
Witnesses told cops a lone gunman — a black male in a hooded sweatshirt — fired five to six .38-caliber bullets into the park’s basketball court about 8 p.m. He then ran off toward Gunther Avenue, sources said.
At midnight, cops received a 911 call reporting more shots fired in the neighborhood, this time two blocks south of the park at 2025 Eli Avenue.
Witnesses didn’t see the gunman, but .38 shell casings were recovered from the scene.
It is unclear if the suspect in the first shooting also fired the midnight bullets that police believe killed Kemar, sources said.
The teen was most likely “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the sources added.
His dad, Cassell Brooks, 50, said his son left to play tennis —Kemar’s greatest passion — but never came back home.
Brooks looked for his son about 9:30 p.m. but didn’t see him anywhere in the park. He went back about 3 a.m. and then again at 5 a.m. — the last time finding Kemar lying dead on his side, his tennis bags and rackets next to him.
Kemar was a ninth-grader at the Bronx Academy of Health Careers, where he was an honor-roll student, bowler and avid tennis player.