Exclusive | Mom of 12-year-old killed by stray bullet in The Bronx says NYC has only gotten safer for criminals

The anguished mother of the 12-year-old boy killed by a stray bullet outside a Bronx bodega said the city has gotten more dangerous as criminals no longer fear consequences — and her son’s murder is just the latest example.

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“Criminals feel more safe now than ever,” Migdalia Martinez, 47, told The Post just days after the senseless killing of her son, Jacob Freytes, whose father is a retired NYPD cop.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch sent 200 more cops to patrol the borough this spring in an effort to reverse a troubling uptrend of violent crime, which has stubbornly persisted despite steady improvements in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island.

But Martinez believes the problem lies with the courts, which she says are “holding the hand” of criminals after cops risk their lives getting them off the streets.

“There’s no more doing time for misdemeanors. There’s no bail … People are just walking free with the possibilities,” she said.

“The system works more for the criminal than they’re gonna work for the victim.”

Career criminal William Ferrer, 45, was arraigned Sunday night on murder, assault and weapons charges after police said he opened fire during a fight in the South Bronx, killing Freytes and wounding two others.

The son of retired NYPD Det. Sgt. Jesus Freytes was “struck in the chest” during the Saturday evening burst of gun violence, and later died at a Bronx hospital, according to the criminal complaint.

Martinez was too overcome with grief to speak to reporters during a vigil for her son outside the family’s apartment building on Monday, but now she’s speaking out in the hopes her family’s tragic story will spark some much-needed change.

“The city’s making it easier for the criminal. It’s too much. Criminals aren’t scared anymore, the laws aren’t tough anymore,” she said Wednesday.

“The city took too many laws away. They took the stop-and-frisk. If there’s a group of a whole bunch of people, I don’t see why you can’t stop and frisk, you know?”

The sudden death of her son rattled Martinez to her core, rendering her bedridden for days after getting a phone call that’s every mother’s worst nightmare.

She was at work at a hotel in Midtown Saturday when her husband called to tell her Jacob had been shot. She rushed “straight to the hospital,” but he had already been pronounced dead by the time she got there.

“The last three days were hurtful. I was angry. I just cried and stood in bed. I didn’t take a shower, I didn’t eat, I didn’t drink.”

She didn’t emerge from her cocoon of sorrow until Monday’s memorial emotional outside the family home, where friends and loved ones joined to mourn the boy’s loss.

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Flowers, food and beverages mourners had brought were piled high on a table, while another displayed some of Jacob’s personal belongings, like a basketball hoop he installed above a neighbor’s door.

“I thought I would go crazy,” she said, before the outpouring of love and support from friends and family.

That support has gone global with a GoFundMe campaign to help Martinez, which has raised nearly $15,000 of its $16,000 goal as of Thursday.

Martinez said Mayor Zohran Mamdani personally called her, telling her to reach out if there was anything she needs, which she felt grateful for, though she hasn’t decided whether to take him up on his offer.

For now, she’s working on putting the pieces of her shattered life back together for the sake of her other children, daughters Angelica, 30; Sol, 28; and Luna, 7, and Jacob’s brother, Jesus, whom she shares with her police officer ex-husband who now lives upstate.

Freytes has been channeling his grief into getting justice for his slain son, using whatever levers are at his disposal as a former police officer.

“Instead of mourning the loss of his son, his father is out there trying to work with the DA … to make sure the guy will do a lot of time,” Martinez said.

She said anything less than a murder conviction would be “a slap in the face to any mother or father that loses their child to gun violence.”

“It’s just unfair … He took the life of a child. He was only 12,” Martinez said, tears filling her eyes.

“My son didn’t get to have a girlfriend. That man did. 
My son will never drive a car, yet you can see in the video that [the accused shooter] is driving in a Mercedes.”

Ferrer’s next court appearance is scheduled for Friday, and Martinez said she will definitely attend.

She called on the accused killer to face the toughest justice possible.

“Maybe you didn’t mean to specifically kill my son, but you meant to shoot that gun, whoever the bullet was meant for,” she said, when asked what she’d say to her son’s accused murderer.

“A bullet has no name. Bullets can ricochet off of a building, or of anything, and anybody could have got hit. Anybody,” she stressed.

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“This was murder. You murdered a 12-year-old child.”