The grieving dad of US vacationer Kevin Mares — the New Yorker who was shot lifeless whereas on a visit to Puerto Rico for a Dangerous Bunny live performance — spoke out on Monday for the primary time because the tragic incident.
“It's very laborious,” a heartbroken Hector Mares informed The Publish. “Yesterday was a tough day. We're nonetheless in ache. He was a stupendous particular person.”
Kevin Mares, 25, on Sunday was partying at a bar in La Perla, a shantytown on the outskirts of Outdated San Juan when pictures rang out throughout a dispute — with the Queens resident and different bystanders hit by the bullets.
He was rushed to an area hospital, the place he was pronounced lifeless.
“Preliminarily, it was a dispute that had nothing to do with this vacationer which arose in entrance of this enterprise in La Perla,” native police Sgt. Arnaldo Ruiz informed Puerto Rico's El Nuevo Dia news outlet.
Mares was in Puerto Rico together with his longtime girlfriend, Angy Nicole Arguello, for a Dangerous Bunny present, a part of the rapper's 30-day residency on the Caribbean island.
Based on his household, Mares had deliberate to suggest to his girlfriend of seven years.
“I'm simply devastated,” Arguello told the Daily News. “Like, I can't consider it. I'm in denial.”
She added: “Each time he'd stroll right into a room, it will mild up … And he was truthfully a real, reliable particular person. Any drawback that I had, he at all times had my again.”
Arguello took to Instagram to publish transferring memorials to her slain beau.
“My love, I like you,” she wrote. “I miss you a lot. Why, God, did you are taking him away from me?”
The slain man's father has now arrange an internet fundraiser on GoFundMe.com to assist elevate funds to convey Mares' physique again to the Large Apple, with the location elevating greater than $31,000 by noon Monday.
“The wound may be very recent,” Mares' cousin, who recognized herself solely as Christina, informed The Publish. “We simply need the physique to come back residence. That's what we're working for.
“The household's exhausted,” she mentioned. “As of now they wish to discover out what's the method, what's with the legal a part of it, why aren't they releasing the physique? The household simply needs the method to hurry up.”
— Further reporting by Kevin Sheehan
