Brooklyn boy paralyzed by gunshots dies 23 years later; death ruled homicide

Randolph Pierce lived more than two decades after a shooting in Brooklyn left him paralyzed from the waist down at age 15. Now, city pathologists have ruled his agonizing death from cancer last year a homicide.

Pierce was 38 when he died on April 21, 2023, after a years-long battle with skin and bone cancer. In a failed attempt to save his life, doctors had to amputate his left leg.

But it was the bullet lodged near Pierce’s spine since the unsolved shooting in Brownsville in 2000 that led the city’s medical examiner to rule his death a homicide.

“The coroner said if Randy hadn’t been shot, he wouldn’t have gotten cancer,” his 30-year-old sister Jahnyia Land told the Daily News last week.

For years, Pierce struggled to deal with the shame he felt over being unable to walk after being shot as a boy. He isolated himself from the outside world and considered suicide.

“He didn’t want to be around people. He didn’t want them to see him in the chair,” Land said. “Sometimes he didn’t want to be alive.”

But Pierce had a daughter, who is now 14, and finally came to terms with his paralysis.

“Thanks to the love of his family members, he began to get used to the chair and feel comfortable,” Land said.

An autopsy in April found that Pierce died from “complications of paraplegia due to a spinal cord injury” caused by the shooting.

These complications occurred in the form of festering bedsores after Pierce lost the use of his legs, which in turn triggered the fatal cancer that killed him, according to his sister.

According to police, Pierce was outside his family’s home in NYCHA’s Tilden Houses around 9 p.m. on February 25, 2000, when shots were fired on Livonia Avenue near Rockaway Avenue.

Pierce pushed a friend out of the line of fire but was hit by three bullets himself, one of which pierced his back and left him paralyzed, his sister said.

“He managed to push his friend away,” Land said. “He saved his friend.”

Land described the shooting as a case of mistaken identity.

Because he spent his life either sitting in a chair or lying in bed, sores formed on his buttocks. They never healed and were prone to infection. In 2017, according to Land, they became infected and became cancerous.

“The sores went so deep that they basically never closed,” Land said. “They treated it and it developed into skin cancer and got worse and worse.”

Pierce underwent surgery on January 27 last year when his mother, Tonya McCrae, succumbed to heart failure at the age of 56. He was distraught when Land informed him of her mother’s death.

“He wanted to leave then,” Land said. “He didn’t want to live anymore after he found out our mother had died.”

Pierce’s condition continued to deteriorate and less than three months later he had to say goodbye to his friends, family and beloved daughter.

“The day before he died, (his daughter) spoke to him,” Land said. “She expressed her feelings about how much she loved him and to be strong. But his time had come.”

A neighbor of Pierce met him for the first time about five years after the shooting.

“Randy was always laughing,” said Jasmine Rosario, 43. “He had the biggest smile. He was always so positive.”

Rosario missed a phone call the day before Pierce’s death and says she will always regret not saying goodbye to her friend. She continues to post loving messages on Pierce’s Facebook page.

“Just because he died doesn’t mean I’ll forget my friend,” Rosario said. “He was an important part of my life. When I was going through difficult times, he was there for me.”

Now Pierce’s relatives hope that the verdict in the murder case could prompt the police to finally arrest someone in connection with the shooting that took place decades ago.

“We are angry because someone killed our brother,” Land said. “There is no justice, nothing. You just have open wounds and no closure.”