Bad Shot Gets 25 yrs for Killing Mom
Son Pens Letter of Pain
BRONX, NEW YORK, DECEMBER 11- It was a misplaced sense of loyalty that killed an innocent bystander and has now landed 30-year-old Joseph Diaz behind bars for 25 years, following his conviction on manslaughter in the first degree, Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson announced.
Diaz’ aim was to prove his loyalty to a friend who had lost a fistfight, when he aimed a gun at the man with whom the friend had the dispute. But the shooter, who even has a tattoo of the word “Loyalty” emblazoned across his neck, had bad aim – and instead killed a young mother, Aisha Santiago.
When Diaz fired a half-dozen shots with a .45-caliber semi-automatic. He did so during the 3 o’clock hour on one of the Bronx’s busiest streets, with the sidewalks at Willis Avenue & East 146th Street teeming with pedestrians, including mothers walking their children home from school.
The 25-year-old Santiago took a bullet straight to her heart, crumpling arms-length away from her 9-year-old son, and dying as she tried to crawl to her little boy.
That little boy, now a 14-year-old teenager, submitted a victim impact statement to the Court (in its entirety below), asking that Diaz “gets what he deserves.”
“There’s not a day I don’t think how my life would [have] been if she was still here…
“All I want is my mom back in my life and finish raising me and helping me [learn] right from wrong…”
“I never want to disappoint my mom but I’m not doing all the right things and making good decisions. But I do whatever I can possibly do to make her proud and see her smile.”
Diaz was sentenced to 25 years in prison with an additional five years post-release supervision by Supreme Court Justice Barbara F. Newman.
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