Shot Brooklyn man is third generation killed by gun violence, mourning mother says

A young man shot on a Brooklyn street last week was the third generation in his family to face death by gun violence , his distraught mother told the Daily News.

Byron Hollingsworth, 26 — fatally shot Tuesday afternoon in Crown Heights — was named after an uncle gunned down in a dispute over a woman three years before Hollingsworth was born.

Hollingsworth’s mother, Tonya Hollingsworth, 58, said her brother’s 1995 death followed the murder of their father, who was shot working as a cab driver in 1979.

The feeling was all too familiar when cops came to her door last week saying her son was dead.

“As soon as I saw three detectives I knew something happened,” Tonya Hollingsworth said. “I just fell to the floor and threw my phone.”

“I cry every day. I can’t believe it. I’m just in a state of shock,” she added. “I’m trying to be strong for him.“

The grieving mother said the links between her murdered son and her slain brother, who looked alike, are powerful.

“My son, he got killed a day after my brother’s birthday,” she said.

The elder Byron was born April 22 and his namesake nephew was shot April 23.

Tonya Hollingsworth’s slain son had been recently asking about his uncle’s death.

“He said ‘Ma, you think whatever happened to Uncle Byron is gonna happen to me?’ I said ‘No,”’ she recalled.

“I said, ‘Don’t think like that, Byron.’ And see, it happened. I didn’t believe it.”

Her son was shot in the neck and stomach on Rogers Ave. near Park Place about 4:05 p.m. Tuesday. He was rushed to Kings County Hospital but could not be saved. No arrests have been made.

Tyvone Hollingsworth said he and his brother had a spat over “something stupid” the day he died but quickly patched it up as they often did.

“He called me right after that,” he said. “I said ‘I love you too.'”

Cops caught wind of the argument and questioned Tyvone Hollingsworth about his brother’s death.

“People were scared of my brother,” Tyvone Hollingsworth said. “He was big. He went to the gym all the time. He got money … He got a job. That’s why. That’s what it was, it was jealousy. I know it was jealousy.”

Their mom also spoke to her son not long before he was killed.

“He said, ‘Ma, I love you, I’ll see you,’” Tonya Hollingsworth recalled.

Her son had been trying to launch a clothing line and worked as a supervisor for a security company. He was hospitalized for a few days about a month before his slaying after suffering a mental breakdown.

“He couldn’t sleep or nothing. Something was bothering him but he didn’t want to tell us,” his mother said. “He was angry about something but he wouldn’t express himself. He kept saying, ‘Ma, you think people are after me?'”

Her son was due in court May 8 for two open cases, a forged instrument arrest on March 19 and a gun possession arrest on March 8, public records show.

Tonya Hollingsworth said she wondered if whatever had been troubling him had anything to do with the shooting.

“I don’t know if he got in an argument with someone or what,” she said. “I wasn’t there. But I know he wasn’t a troublemaker.”

“He used to pray every day. Seven days a week. Three, four times a day,” she added. “He liked the music. He was a spiritual person. Very religious.”

He helped care for his mother, who is battling heart disease.

“When I first found out [he died], because of my heart condition I started getting bad chest pains,” Tonya Hollingsworth said.  “If I don’t have stuff in the house he would buy it. He’d help me pay my rent. Everything. I ran out of stuff, he was there to get it.”

Her son split his time between his family’s home about a mile-and-a-half from where he was killed and his girlfriend’s Harlem place.

“He wanted to open his own business,” Tonya Hollingsworth said.  “He wanted to buy us a house. He was saying, ‘I want to buy you a house.’ He said out of state. He didn’t really want to be around here.”

The family is so distraught they haven’t been able to stay in their home, where everything reminds them of him.

“My daughter, she said ‘No, I can’t stay here if my brother’s not here,'” Tonya Hollingsworth said.  “That’s how it’s getting us … I go to my sister’s house.”

The family is hoping for an arrest in the case.

“The same way my son go, I hope you go the same way,” Tonya Hollingsworth said of the killer. “I hope you rot in jail … That’s my son. You murdered my baby. My baby boy.”