{"id":500,"date":"2025-09-26T10:08:58","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T14:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inhishands\/?p=500"},"modified":"2025-09-26T10:08:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T14:08:58","slug":"mom-of-boy-left-brain-dead-in-nyc-shooting-outside-dunkin-prays-for-recovery-miracles-do-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inhishands\/2025\/09\/mom-of-boy-left-brain-dead-in-nyc-shooting-outside-dunkin-prays-for-recovery-miracles-do-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"Mom of Boy Left Brain-Dead in NYC Shooting Outside Dunkin\u2019 Prays For Recovery: ‘Miracles do happen’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
gofundme \/ Support Sanjay Samuels Recovery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The mother of a 13-year-old boy who was left on life support after he was\u00a0shot in the head<\/a>\u00a0outside of a Dunkin\u2019 Donuts in Queens is still praying for a miracle that the teenager will recover.<\/p>\n

Sanjay Samuel, a student at Martin Van Buren High School, is \u201cbrain dead\u201d after he was shot outside the coffee shop in Cambria Heights while walking to school on Monday morning, according to his mother, Vilene Griffith.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiracles do happen, and I\u2019m trusting God for Sanjay to get up,\u201d she\u00a0told CBS New York<\/a>\u00a0of her hoops-playing son who dreamed of becoming a firefighter.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing is going on. He\u2019s not breathing on his own. He\u2019s not doing nothing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Witnesses told The Post that the youthful-looking gunman pulled up to the restaurant on a scooter and got into a short fight with Samuel before he took out a gun and shot him.<\/p>\n

The suspect, who had an afro and was carrying a distinctive \u201cJAWS\u201d bookbag, then ran off, police sources said.<\/p>\n

Sanjay was rushed to Cohen Children\u2019s Medical Center for treatment of his life-threatening gunshot wound. The teen\u2019s father\u00a0told the New York Daily News<\/a>\u00a0that the bullet is still lodged in the back of his son\u2019s head.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe asked them if they could do the surgery to remove the bullet,\u201d Theophilus Samuel said. \u201cThey said, \u2018No, that could make it worse.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The motive for the shooting remained under investigation \u2014 but a 14-year-old classmate said she believes the typically \u201cfriendly\u201d student may have recently fallen in with the wrong crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might have been the group he was with \u2026 I don\u2019t know if it was his friends, I just knew it was a little situation that happened that was way before. Not today,\u201d the teenager told The Post, without divulging further.<\/p>\n

No arrests have been made and police have not identified the shooter, whom Sanjay\u2019s father blasted as a \u201ccoward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can you live with this? At the moment, you\u2019re probably hyped. But as time goes by, you have to think \u2026 \u2018I took another person\u2019s life,’\u201d Samuel said.<\/p>\n

Griffith wanted to ask the suspect why he shot her son \u2014 a basketball player who wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up.<\/p>\n

Sanjay had just graduated from middle school earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI lost my son, and your mom lost you, also,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Article written by Patrick Reilly and originally appeared on NYPost.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mother of a 13-year-old boy who was left on life support after he was\u00a0shot in the head\u00a0outside of a Dunkin\u2019 Donuts in Queens is still praying for a miracle that the teenager will recover. Sanjay Samuel, a student at Martin Van Buren High School, is \u201cbrain dead\u201d after he was shot outside the coffee…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":630,"featured_media":512,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMom of Boy Left Brain-Dead in NYC Shooting Outside Dunkin\u2019 Prays For Recovery: 'Miracles do happen'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The mother of a 13-year-old boy who was left on life support after he was shot in the head outside of a Dunkin\u2019 Donuts in Queens is still praying for a miracle that the teenager will recover.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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