Aspiring singer shot while on way to meet vocal coach

TIMES SQUARE (WABC) -- Police are looking for the gunman who shot an aspiring singer who may now be paralyzed. He was gunned down while on his way to achieve his dream.

The 27-year old victim was headed to meet with his celebrity vocal coach when he was shot, and his classmates want him back to add his voice to theirs.

Their Times Square chorus produces a beautiful sound, but it is missing one voice.

A student in the Times Square class was on his way there on Jan. 2nd, walking in a tunnel on the way to a train in Jamaica, Queens when he was shot in the back.

C-Jay is the name he goes by, and his friends have set up a website to pay his medical bills.

Tsebiyah Dary spent Christmas with C-Jay. They've been friends and classmates together. She visited C-Jay at the hospital that night.

"It's jarring to see someone you love in the hospital, but I was also a little bit at ease because I could see that he's gonna be ok," she said.

The teacher visited him too, and just hours after being shot, C-Jay could speak only in whispers.

"As I got closer to him, he said "Craig, I forgave him," said singing coach Craig Derry.

The class is hoping and praying C-Jay will recover and that he'll come back and fill their chorus, but it will not be easy.

"He was shot in the back so he's got a tough row to hoe, but if anybody can do it, and he's willing and he's strong, and he's fighting," said Derry.

C-Jay believes it was a case of mistaken identity. After being shot, he heard the gunman say "It's not him".

A $2,000 reward has been issued for information leading to an arrest.