US News

DOUBLE DOSE OF GRIEF – FLT. 587, BODEGA SLAY

A popular Bronx bodega clerk who was shot in the back by one of two masked bandits will be waked tomorrow – three years to the day after a beloved relative was killed on the American Airlines flight that crashed in the Rockaways.

The double tragedy was too much to bear for Ramona Dume, who was hospitalized after hearing the awful news that her brother, Afraeni Dume, 44, was killed trying to escape from the gunmen at the Forest Deli in the Melrose section Tuesday night.

“This has not been a good night for our family,” said Marbella Tejeda, Dume’s 30-year-old niece.

She said that relatives had already been planning a memorial service for another family member, Alen Noboa, when her uncle was killed.

Noboa was one of 260 people who died in the crash of Flight 587, which was bound from JFK to the Dominican Republic.

It was not clear why the bodega bandits opened fire on Dume, who has a 6-year-old daughter in the Dominican Republic.

Witness Herman Martinez, who also worked at the bodega, said the two gunmen, wearing monster masks, stormed into the store as the last customer was leaving and demanded the Mega Millions cash receipts.

He said that Dume “panicked” and bolted toward the rear, where he opened a trap door leading to the basement.

That’s when one of the gunmen, brandishing an automatic weapon, screamed, “Where are you going!” Martinez said. Dume turned with his hands raised to face the gunman.

“That’s when the guy kicks him down the steps and fires one shot,” Martinez recalled.

“I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t stop him. I was scared.”

Neighbor Celia Torres described Dume as a hardworking man “who always went straight from work to his house.

“They took the life of a good person.”

A niece of the victim, Marbella Tejeda, said she hopes the killers go through “the same pain my family is going through now,” adding, “If they had a heart, they’d suffer just like we do.”

She said relatives told Dume’s little daughter what had happened and she was “very, very distraught.”

The robbers escaped with about $1,100 in cash and two cartons of Newport cigarettes, police said.

Dume was still conscious when he was taken to Lincoln Hospital, but went into cardiac arrest and died an hour later.

The bandits were still at large last night.

(p. 25 in metro and sports extra)