The mother of Jacob Freytes, a 12-year-old boy killed by a stray bullet in the Bronx while riding his bike to a bodega, is pushing for a new law requiring life sentences for anyone convicted of recklessly taking a child's life.
Migdalia Martinez appeared on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday alongside her daughter Angelica Coriano to describe the afternoon that ended her son's life, and to challenge a criminal justice system she says protects offenders more than the families they destroy. William Ferrer, a 45-year-old man whose arrest record stretches back more than 25 years, faces multiple charges including second-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty.
Jacob, the son of a retired NYPD detective sergeant, was riding to a nearby bodega to buy a ball when Ferrer allegedly opened fire during a street dispute. The stray round struck the boy. Two other adults were also wounded. Martinez told Fox News she got the call around five o'clock that day.
"Around five o'clock, they called me and said that he had gotten shot. And all I could do was try to think of different ways to get here faster."
When she arrived, her son was already gone.
"When I got there, I just seen my boy gone."
Hours earlier, Martinez had left for work after a routine goodbye, the kind of small moment that becomes unbearable in hindsight. She described kissing Jacob and doing what she called "a little dolphin kiss" before walking out the door. It was the last time she saw him alive.
Security cameras inside the bodega recorded what happened next. The New York Post reported that footage shows Jacob leaving his bike outside, walking into the store to buy a ball, and then being struck by a stray bullet during a brawl on the street. He collapsed inside the bodega, clutching his chest. The shooting took place on Elliott Place near the Grand Concourse in the Bronx.
Jacob's father, Jesus Freytes, a retired NYPD sergeant who had served in the Bronx, was in Connecticut at the time of his son's death.
Jacob's uncle, Julio Lopez, described the boy as respectful and well-liked in the neighborhood. "He was saying hi to guys up the block. He showed respect... He was a good kid. He's gonna be missed," Lopez said.
NYC Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch addressed the arrest on X, calling Jacob "an innocent bystander on his bike when he was taken from his family yesterday in an act of senseless gun violence." She added that "no arrest can ever ease the pain of this unimaginable loss, but the NYPD will continue to do everything in our power to seek justice for Jacob."
The killing of a retired officer's child on a Bronx sidewalk sharpened the family's anger at a system they believe has grown dangerously lenient.
Ferrer is not a first-time offender. His arrest record dates back more than 25 years and includes prior charges for drunk driving, drug possession, menacing, and criminal contempt, as the New York Post previously reported. That history sits at the center of the family's frustration.
Martinez did not sugarcoat what she sees as a broken system. She pointed to New York's cash bail reforms for misdemeanors and the end of stop-and-frisk as policies that have made the city less safe for ordinary residents.
"It's just so much that they allow that, at this point, it's just safer more for the criminals than it is for hardworking people."
That complaint, that the system has been restructured around the rights of repeat offenders at the expense of law-abiding families, is one that New York residents have raised repeatedly in recent years. The Freytes family now joins a growing list of grieving households demanding accountability from lawmakers who championed those reforms.
The pattern of street violence in the Bronx has extended beyond civilian victims. First responders have found themselves in the crossfire, too, raising questions about whether any corner of the borough is safe from the consequences of lax enforcement.
Coriano, Jacob's sister, used the Fox News appearance to outline a proposal the family calls "Jacob's Law." As she described it, the measure would eliminate judicial discretion in cases where a child is recklessly killed, requiring offenders to go directly to prison rather than cycling through court hearings that leave families uncertain about the outcome.
"'Jacob's Law' will allow for there to be no in-between whether somebody goes to jail or not for taking a child's life recklessly. It'll allow for criminals to go straight to jail or prison instead of the family having to go to court continuously hoping and wondering if they're [going to] get the justice that they deserve for the child that they lost."
Coriano acknowledged that the charges filed against Ferrer were welcome news but said the family remains uneasy about whether the system will follow through. She described the experience of sitting in court and learning the charges, then realizing that none of it guarantees the sentence the family believes justice demands.
"And we went to court and found out all the charges that he'd be receiving, which is great, but we still have to sit with the worry whether he'll face all the time that is necessary enough to keep him where he needs to be. And that type of uncertainty is very uncomfortable for us as a family, knowing that we'll never see our child again."
Whether "Jacob's Law" has been formally introduced as legislation, and by whom, remains unclear. But the proposal reflects a broader demand from victims' families who argue that New York's criminal justice reforms have tilted the scales too far toward defendants, leaving those who suffer the consequences with no guaranteed recourse.
The Freytes case is not the only recent Bronx incident that has drawn scrutiny to the intersection of law enforcement families and street violence. A Mount Vernon deputy police commissioner was recently charged as a getaway driver for her son in a separate Bronx shooting, a case that underscored how deeply the borough's violence has penetrated even into households with direct ties to policing.
Martinez described her son as a "funny, quirky kid" who loved his friends, his family, and video games. But the detail she kept returning to was his instinct for kindness toward people he barely knew.
"There wasn't an old woman he didn't help with bags or cross the street. There wasn't a person that if he caught your eye, he'd make sure to tell you hi."
That is the boy a 45-year-old man with a quarter-century arrest record allegedly took from the world, not in a targeted act, but in a reckless street dispute that sent a bullet into a child on a bicycle. The community around Elliott Place has already begun to demand that city officials address the conditions on the block where Jacob died.
Jacob Freytes was twelve. He wanted a ball. He got a bullet. And his mother is left asking why the man who fired it was still on the street in the first place, a question New York's leaders have yet to answer.
