What happened outside 113 West 90th Street on Manhattan's upper west side has left a mother mourning the loss of her only child.
She talked with Eyewitness News reporter Stacey Sager today.
"There are no words to describe when you lose a child," victim's mother Janet Gaston said. "None..." Her grief has taken her words. The devastation of losing her only child is just too much to bear.
It was here on West 90th Street and Amsterdam Avenue -- at one o'clock in the morning.
That 15-year-old Maurice Mciver's fun night out with friends suddenly turned ugly.
"It was just - east side and west side. That's what everybody was yelling," victim's friend Karina Ortega said.
"Wherever you were from, that's what they were yelling."
Karina Ortega was Maurice's best friend and she and others tell us - it started when they went from Maurice's east Harlem neighborhood to this upper west side apartment for a friend's birthday party.
But the party with about 50 teenagers soon spilled outside as did the rivalry between east and west. Suddenly, there was a gunfire and Maurice on the ground. And Karina was handcuffed by police in the confusion.
"I felt like I lost my brother," Karina Ortega said. "They couldn't tell me he died."
Witnesses say that after Maurice was shot, the crowd just scattered out here on the street. And so detectives were canvassing this area looking for anyone who saw the gunman.
This witness says he just tried to help Maurice who was lying on the ground.
"He was conscious, asking me to help him. Please mister, help me. I said, what's your name, he was trying to tell me his name," witness Michael Dominquez said. "I said, you're going to be alright."
But he died a short time later.
Maurice's mother tells us she has no idea how to fill a void that seems so unreal.
"I have good friends and I have my family," victim's mother said. "But it's not going to replace your child."
