Two Bronx thugs have been arrested in the slaying of a city employee as he worked a second job to support his young family, police said yesterday.
Frank Conte, 26, was identified as the suspected triggerman in the death of Raymond Barnett, 38, in the wee hours of Oct. 28 at The Bronx Cocktails bar in Unionport.
Barnett, a married dad of two young daughters and the head of fleet management for the city’s Department of Design and Construction, worked as a bouncer at the club to earn extra money.
Conte and David Romero showed up at 5:23 a.m. and became incensed when Barnett told them the bar was closed, cops said.
Conte allegedly fired several bullets through the window, and one struck Barnett. Cops said Romero, 26, ditched the gun.
Police busted Conte on Friday and Romero yesterday.
“I’m very glad,” Barnett’s widow, Eydi, said last night. “Now I just want to make sure they don’t get out of jail. I’m definitely relieved. Well, maybe not. I still feel empty, whether they were caught or not. I still don’t have [Raymond] here.”
She said her daughters, Elvira, 10, and Shahara, 8, are taking life without Daddy “day by day.”
“It’s something they still need to get used to,” she said. “They have to learn to deal with it.”
Additional reporting by Kate Sheehy