A 45-year-old man with a criminal record stretching back more than two decades has been locked up at Rikers Island without bail after prosecutors say he opened fire in the South Bronx, killing a 12-year-old boy who had ridden his bicycle to a corner store to buy a ball.

William Ferrer was arraigned Sunday night on seven counts, including second-degree murder, attempted murder, first-degree manslaughter, first-degree assault, second-degree assault, and two counts of criminal weapons possession, for the shooting death of Jacob Freytes outside the Wanda Deli Grocery on Elliott Place near the Grand Concourse, the New York Post reported. Jacob was the son of retired NYPD Detective Sergeant Jesus Freytes, who once worked in the same Bronx precinct where his boy was killed.

The criminal complaint states that Jacob was "struck in the chest" by a stray bullet Saturday afternoon while a fight erupted outside the bodega. Two other men were also hit, one in the buttocks, one in the foot, and treated at local hospitals. Jacob ran back into the store clutching his chest, collapsed, and was later pronounced dead at NYC Health and Hospitals/Lincoln.

Ferrer's rap sheet dates to 1999, and none of it stopped him

Police sources told the Post that Ferrer has roughly half a dozen prior arrests. His record begins in 1999 with an arrest for possession of a forged instrument. In 2001, he was arrested separately for menacing and criminal contempt. A 2004 arrest followed for possession of stolen property in the Bronx. By 2009, he had picked up arrests for marijuana possession and drunk driving. In 2013, he was arrested again for drug possession.

None of those prior encounters with the criminal justice system kept Ferrer off the streets on the Saturday afternoon when, law-enforcement sources say, he pulled a gun and started shooting to settle a score on behalf of his brother. The targets were other men in the group outside the bodega. Jacob Freytes was not part of the dispute. He was a bystander, a child on a bicycle.

The pattern is grimly familiar in New York City, where repeat offenders cycle through the system and resurface on the streets with devastating consequences for people who had nothing to do with whatever beef put a gun in someone's hand.

Surveillance video captured Jacob's final moments

Security camera footage reportedly captured the sequence of events. Fox News reported that the video shows Jacob running back into the bodega after being shot, seeking refuge in a store where he was a regular. Fernando Mateo, a spokesman for United Bodegas of America, described the footage in stark terms.

Mateo told Fox News:

"He runs back into the bodega because he lives in the area, and he's a regular in that bodega seeking refuge. But no, he didn't make it. Twelve years old."

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch called the killing what it was. "Jacob was an innocent bystander on his bike when he was taken from his family yesterday in an act of senseless gun violence," Tisch said.

Jacob had only just received the bicycle from a neighbor the day before the shooting, a separate Post report noted. He rode it to the bodega shortly before 5 p.m. that Saturday, a kid doing what kids do on a summer afternoon. Marlyn Rosario, a 12-year-old friend, told the Post simply: "He was at the wrong place at the wrong time."

Gang turf and a grieving neighborhood

Police are investigating whether the shooting was connected to a dispute between the Trinitarios and Sev Side Pinni street gangs, both of which claim territory in the Mount Eden section of the Bronx where the bodega sits. The Post reported that investigators are examining whether those crews were behind the violence that Saturday.

Walter Calon, a neighbor, told the Post he had shaken Jacob's hand shortly before the shooting and told him to look out for his younger siblings.

"I shook his hand and said, 'Look out for your little brother and sister.' And then less than a half-hour later, I got a call from my mom and I just dropped the phone right out of my hand."

By Monday, a memorial had gone up outside the family's apartment building, candles, flowers, a football, toys, sympathy cards, and a portrait of Jacob. His mother, Migdalia Martinez, was surrounded by friends and relatives but was too distraught to speak. Incidents like these leave communities scarred in ways that statistics alone cannot capture, a reality underscored by similar episodes of public gunfire that have rattled neighborhoods across the country.

Neighbor Julio Lopez spoke for the block. "We're all standing with this family," he said. "There's nothing we can say or do. Love your loved ones, give your kids a hug today and every day."

Lopez did not stop there:

"There's a scar on this community. Tomorrow is not promised. This is heartbreaking. Put the guns down. Put your fists up. Get some boxing gloves. Fight it out."

Missell Ventura says the neighborhood no longer feels safe

Missell Ventura, whose daughter was friends with Jacob, called him "a beautiful boy." But her grief quickly turned to fear about the world her own child now navigates daily.

"I don't feel safe. I don't think my daughter can go to school by herself. I don't let her go to the store. Sometimes I don't want to go outside because it's always a shooting. It's hard for me. There's nowhere to be safe. It's out of control."

That is not a political talking point. It is a mother describing the conditions on her own street, conditions that persist, in part, because men with records like Ferrer's remain free to carry firearms in neighborhoods where children ride bicycles to the corner store. When violent crime claims lives, the public rightly asks whether the system did everything it could before the trigger was pulled.

Ferrer showed no emotion as police led him away

On Sunday afternoon, officers led Ferrer out of the 44th Precinct stationhouse in the Bronx and placed him in an unmarked police car. He showed no visible emotion. Hours later, a judge remanded him to Rikers Island without bail. No date for his next court appearance was immediately given.

Ferrer now faces the most serious consequences he has encountered in a quarter-century of run-ins with the law. The charges, murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, assault, and weapons possession, carry the potential for decades in prison. Whether this case finally produces accountability is a question the courts will answer. The criminal justice system's long and complicated relationship with repeat offenders offers little comfort to the families left behind.

Jacob Freytes was twelve. He had a new bike and wanted a ball. He did everything right, and the system that was supposed to keep violent repeat offenders away from kids like him did not.