A man shot and killed in a dispute outside a Manhattan barbershop was a hard working father who was hustling for a food delivery service to earn cash, his sister said Friday.
Candles burned outside the Harlem building where Oscar Hernandez, 24, lived, not far from the barbershop where he died awaiting his last haircut.
Cops said Hernandez was inside the shop on Amsterdam Ave. and W. 151st St. shortly before 10 a.m. Thursday when a man opened the door and asked him what he was looking at, sources said.
Cops said Hernandez stepped outside to confront the man, who pulled out a gun and shot him in the neck and back.
Medics took Hernandez to Mt. Sinai Morningside Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Cops said it was unclear if the shooter and the victim were strangers.
But relatives said Hernandez didn’t know the gunman, and that the shooting was a case of mistaken identity.
“They’re saying it wasn’t even meant for him, that it was a guy looking for someone else, that he was there at the wrong place at the wrong time,” said a man named Chris, the victim’s cousin.
“He was a good kid, always worried about hustling and his money, making sure that he helped his mom.”
Dozens of candles burned at a makeshift memorial Friday outside Hernandez’s apartment building on W. 146th St., and the melted wax ran downhill toward Convent Avenue. Mourners left messages and photographs remembering their friend and neighbor.
Hernandez’s sister, Destiny Soto, 18, said her brother was well-loved, and the two worked together to earn cash by making Uber Eats deliveries.
“He was such a good man,” Soto said. “He was so young, a father. If you know him he has such a happy, goofy soul. He didn’t deserve this,” she said.
Soto said she couldn’t believe the violence had hit so close to home.
“This gun violence needs to stop,” she said. “We’re losing too many people. It’s so hard for my family because we’re so close.”
There were no immediate arrests in the case.
Cops released a photo of a person wanted for questioning in the shooting, and are asking anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS.
