By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-06-10 22:31:07 | Updated at 2026-06-11 09:18:34
10 hours ago
The shattered family of a Bronx man senselessly shot on a city bus for telling an obnoxious teen to pipe down revealed Wednesday that his young daughter still hasn’t grasped his death.
Jonathan Pettigrew, 41, was headed to pick up the 7-year-old from daycare Monday when he got in a fateful argument with a still-unidentified youngster on a BX36 bus, his brother Avery Pettigrew, 43, told The Post.
The youth — believed to be between 13 and 16 years old — fatally shot Jonathan Pettigrew in the stomach as the pair argued over the mouthy youngster talking too loud into his cell phone, police and sources said.
Pettigrew died after being rushed to a local hospital — without ever seeing his beloved little daughter again.
“She’s too young to understand,” said a bereft Avery Pettigrew. “When she gets the mind to start asking for her father, we’re going to have to try to make her understand.
“She’s really her daddy’s little girl.”
The shooter ran off, heading south on White Plains Road in Parkchester toting a black handgun, cops and sources said. He remained on the loose Thursday.
The slaying ripped Pettigrew from his daughter and his tightknit family just as he started to turn a corner in his life, Avery Pettigrew said.
The devoted dad had scored a job that helped get himself and his daughter out of a shelter, his brother said.
“He just got his apartment, just got out of the shelter and… he got his daughter,” Avery Pettigrew said.
The quick-witted Jonathan Pettigrew often had friends and family in stitches, always worked hard and never missed a chance to spend time with his mother and siblings, his brother said. A sports fan, he was rooting for the Knicks to break their decades-long NBA championship drought, according to his sibling.
“My brother was not a street person. He was a good kid. He was never a gangbanged — none of that,” Avery Pettigrew said.
“I’m very, very, very angry right now. Right now, I’m trying to be calm because I have to worry about my mother. She is very sick. My mother just had a stroke. I gotta go over there and comfort her before she ends up catching another one. She’s taking it very hard — all my family is taking it very hard.”
The devastated brother said he wasn’t surprised that Jonathan confronted the rude youth.
“We all were raised like that. In our time we would put the kids in their place if they did wrong,” he said. “My brother is gonna let people know right from wrong: ‘Yo, can you bring it down a little bit?’ The kid probably took it the wrong way and shot my brother.
“He was just around the wrong people at the wrong time.”
Avery Pettigrew plans to sue the city over his brother’s death, arguing he should have been safe on an MTA bus. But most of all, he said he wants the young shooter to be found.
“I need justice for my brother,” he said.
— Additional reporting by Amanda Woods
